


bring you home (i promise)

by b00mgh



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Dissociation, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Hunk (Voltron) Has Two Moms, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Keith (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Langst, M/M, Might add more tags as i go, Pidge | Katie Holt is a nerd and a mess, Prisoner of War, Psychological Torture, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Space Mom Allura (Voltron), Space Uncle Coran (Voltron), Trauma, all lowercase title gang, she is doing her Best ok, sue me, you can pry my oc from my cold dead fingers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:00:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27212335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b00mgh/pseuds/b00mgh
Summary: “I won’t leave him here.”“Keith–”“Even if it’s just a body I’d be bringing back, I can’t leave him here.”All of Team Voltron is taken prisoner on an old Galra ship inhabited by a sea of old bots, a Commander who hardly shows her face, and a torturer who makes them all pick a number. Lance guesses the number right, so the torturer whisks him away and destroys him. Day after day after day.They can't afford to sit here and wait for help. They need to escape.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 65
Kudos: 307





	1. Distress Call

Distress call. Response team. Poor planning. Half-cocked and half-confident. So tired after 3 years of this shit. Not even to the surface before the tractor beam sucks them down the drain of a Galra ship. About half an hour of holding out inside enemy lines before they began to succumb to enemy forces. And now?

Now all five paladins of Voltron are handcuffed, helmets and bayards 1   
confiscated, in a Cell. One Cell. It’s bigger than most Galra prison cells, but that doesn’t mean it’s spacious for five people. There’s a bunk on one of the walls adjacent to the door, and there’s a drain in the corner opposite the door that they can assume is meant to be a bathroom. They don’t think they’ll be here long enough to use it. 

They expect some Galra general to come give them a harsh talking-to. A gloat. A taunt. A threat. A trade. But nothing. Nothing. 

“Not as hospitable as our previous captors,” Lance jibes when they’ve been there a few hours and the strain of the handcuffs is starting to chafe on their morale. “What?” he laughs when he manages a smile from Pidge, “No dinner? Not even a cup of coffee?” Hunk’s lips curl in a smile too. “How  _ rude _ ,” Lance huffs, and even Shiro’s worried expression releases some of its pinch. To get the full effect, to include everyone, Lance nudges Keith in the ribs and mutters loudly to him, “I bet they won’t even let us go on the balcony.”

“Balcony?” Keith echoes, misunderstanding morphing to frustration, “Lance, we’re–” but he takes in his teammates’ expressions. Fragile hope built on tiny jokes. His anger becomes a caricature of himself when he alters his reply, “We’re certainly  _ not _ being given a warm welcome.” He’s not great at jokes, but he can try. For them. Family. 

It’s awkward, but everyone seems to appreciate the effort, and their laughs grow a little. Lance’s eyes shine in the dim lighting, smile more intimate than before. 

_ We really are a good team _

“We’ve got to find a way out of here,” Shiro opens up the only avenue of conversation that really matters. Everyone tries not to notice how cagey he’s starting to look under purple lighting. His metal arm whirs quietly to break the silence.

Nobody has great answers, but Pidge always has a guess. She keeps it to herself for now, but the gears are certainly turning behind hazel eyes.

Hunk, for his part, always has a question. Right now, it’s “Is it weird to you guys that nobody has come to check on us? I feel like usually someone comes in sooner.” And he’s got a point. Usually someone does come by within the first hour. To peruse the spoils of battle or to make a demand, at least. 

Usually. Anybody with a family left to go back to considers how their loved ones would react to knowing the number of times each of them has been kidnaped. Fourteen, seven, twelve, nineteen, five– too often. But experience, even of that sort, is a tactical advantage. It’s a comfort to know the enemy has done their worst to you often enough that you know the pattern. That you’ve walked away every time.

They sit like ducks. Telling time precisely is impossible. The dim lighting does not change, and can’t be used to discern midnight from three pm from ten in the morning. 

When morale begins to sink, Lance crackles to life with a quiet joke, a gentle nudge, a kind word. Seventh wheel, Keith’s ass. Maybe if Lance had confessed that insecurity to–… well, to  _ anyone _ else, really, then maybe  _ they  _ would have had the articulacy to explain how wrong Lance had been with those two words. Seventh wheel. But here he is, spinning words into a fine web that is suspending them above a precipice of surrender to an enemy who has yet to show their face. 

It’s just a little while after Shiro’s stomach begins to growl (and when  _ he’s _ hungry, everyone is) that they hear the Doppler effect of footsteps making their way to the door of their Cell. 

The commander is not Galra, but the war decorum in her stance makes it clear that, for them, it doesn’t matter who she is. 

“I’ll say this once,” her voice booms in the eight-by-eight-foot Cell, “We have yet to locate your base of operations, the Princess Allura of Altea, or the Royal Advisor Coran of Altea. Tell us where they are.”

Nobody moves. Nobody blinks. Nobody breathes.

“If you refuse,” the commander’s teeth are bared, sharp and sideways compared to human mouths, “I will make this very unpleasant before you are executed before Lord Zarkon in one month.”

They all look to each other, confirming. Keith speaks for them, because he’s  _ great _ at telling people, “Go fuck yourself.”

The commander is clearly peeved, but she is the picture of war-decorum when she stalks out of the Cell, tail whipping behind her. “Your turn, Ghennan.”

Ghennan is not Galra either, but he wears a simpler uniform. Not a guard’s. Something else. Gives the group a sympathetic smile, eyes crinkling where they sit in his leathery skin. “Pick a number,” he requests softly, “Each of you, pick a number.”

“Seven,” Keith snaps. Lance gives him a crooked smile for it. 

“One,” Lance adds.

“Five thousand six hundred and eighty-three,” Pidge answers, her voice a mocking trill.

“Nine,” Shiro murmurs.

“Eighteen?” Hunk finishes. 

Ghennan nods slowly, taking the numbers in. He looks between them with a new mixture of contempt guarding his pity. Shiro feels his stomach drop– he’s seen that look before on tens of other faces– the ones who–  _ monsters _ . Despite himself, Shiro feels his eyes squeeze shut. The rest of the team levels Ghennan with hateful stares that leave no room for Ghennan to think he has an edge on them. Lance takes the hands of Keith, on one side of him, and Pidge, on the other. For their support and his. 

“You,” Ghennan says, pointing, “you guessed the number in my head.”

“What?” Lance echoes, staring up the barrel of Ghennan’s long fingers where they point between his eyes. Such a lighthearted announcement. It feels like a death sentence in his stomach. He drops Keith’s and Pidge’s hands.

A few Galra bots step into the doorframe, and it’s the first time any of them notice that the door is still open. They wonder if they can get away– but they’re all handcuffed, sitting on the floor, and now surrounded by Galra bots. More are undoubtedly just outside the door. 

Ghennan directs the bots, and they attach a laser-like lead to Lance’s handcuffs and begin a steady march out the door. 

They all know this part. 

“Don’t worry,” he reassures them as he follows the bots out (it’s that or be dragged. He’s got to go with them either way), “I can take a few licks and keep kicking.”

“It’s  _ ticking _ ,” Keith calls after him.

Lance’s voice is distant when he replies, “Did I stutter,  _ guapo _ –!?  _ Ow _ , okay, okay. I’m going!”

When the door shuts, their cuffs fall off and clang against the metal floor. 

They wait for what feels like hours. 

Of course, they spend most of that time worrying. But they’ve done this before. They’ll probably have the pleasure of doing it again. Lance can take it. Then tomorrow it’ll be Keith or Hunk or Pidge or Shiro’s turn, and it’ll keep going until they bust themselves out or Allura and Coran round up what allies can be roused and rescue them. 

Keith spends half the time straining his ears– already more perceptive than those of his teammates– for the edges of taunts he can hear in whiplash tones down the hall. Lance won’t lose to this. And Keith will make them pay for every drop of paladin blood spilled. They all will. They’ve done it before. 

At one point, Hunk tries to lighten the mood– like Lance would have done– but it falls short when his anxious rambling goes sideways into territories they don’t want to discuss. 

_ Has it been too long? I feel like it’s been too long _

The goddamned lights aren’t helping. They never change in brightness at all. Time seems to stretch like silly putty in the sun, except the Cell is cold. Frigid, maybe, originally. All the bodies inside keep it just below comfortable. 

When Lance comes back, he’s still walking. That’s good. He’s favoring one side, there’s blood dripping from his neck, and bruising has swelled half his face, but he’s conscious and standing. It could have been worse. Consolation prize.

He doesn’t say a word until the bots have left them and shut the door.

“Fucking hell,” he spits into their little drain and smiles bloodily at them, “Hey guys, I’m back from torture camp. Did you miss me?”

Hunk responds by wrapping him in a hug and Pidge responds by pulling him out of Hunk’s embrace to check his injuries. Shiro responds with a relieved sigh and Keith responds with a growl, and a grip on Lance’s hand. 

All minor cuts and bruises– compared to previous incarcerations. The blood he had spit out was from biting his tongue, nothing internal. 

They’ve had much worse first days as prisoners. When Hunk and Shiro got kidnapped a few months ago, Hunk had gotten the worst of it before they got them out– it had taken several hours in a healing pod for Hunk to be stable enough to even clean off the blood.

Within ten minutes of Lance’s return, they are given a tray of five bite-size cubes, one for each of them, through a thin slot in the center of the door. Food, apparently. They’re tasteless, chewy, and have a liquid-filled center. Like a gusher, if it was one square inch exactly and tasted like dirt. Very filling, and the liquid, while clearly not water, is hydrating.

“I take back what I said before,” Lance smiles around the swelling over his right cheek, “these guys are  _ way _ nicer than the other Galra ships I’ve been kidnapped on.”

A wry chuckle works its way out of the group. It’s true. Some light beatings, but nothing worse than what anyone would have come away with after a rough battle. Food– and enough to be filling at that.

“It seems too good to be true,” Pidge whispers nervously. Shiro nods, eyes swimming with flashbacks kept at bay. Out of everyone, Shiro deals with being captured the most poorly. He freaks out and shuts down, revealing nothing to their captors but everything to his teammates with just the way the light hits his eyes. Genuinely, Shiro can’t handle it. They can understand why. 

Lance ruffles Pidge’s hair, spirits still high. “Hey, I’m not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, Pidgeon.” She swats his hand away irritably, but she seems to relax a little too. 

They had been there, at that point, for two days.    
  


The next day, wordlessly, Ghennan leads two bots in, and they grab Lance– who had been sleeping with the rest, while Hunk was on watch– and begin to drag him out. 

“ _ ¿Quién–? _ Oh, quiznacking–  _ Twice _ !? That’s just rude.” Hunk knows that if he fights back, they’ll take it out on Lance, but he still wants to. Impulsively, he moves to body check one of the bots, but Ghennan glances, looking Hunk up and down, and Hunk thinks better of it. Ghennan smiles gently. The other paladins wake up to the sound of Lance’s swearing and his booted feet scuffing against the joints in the metal of the hallway floors. 

“Shit–” Shiro coughs, panic threatening to overthrow the control he has over himself.

Pidge bites her lip to hold in everything else.

Hunk is still glaring– livid and ready to fight– at the closed door of their Cell. 

Keith stammers, “Th-that’s not– they took him again?”

Sure, sometimes a Galra commander, torturer, soldier, interrogator– whoever was running their show– would pick a favorite hostage, and focus efforts on that paladin. But it wasn’t common. And it was scary. There’s something intangibly terrifying about knowing that someone you love is a sadist’s favorite doll to play with. 

They wait out that day. Hoping, barely. A thin red thread wobbled where it connected them to their teammate down the hall. Anxiety. 

Pidge spends some of the hours wondering how they’re going to get out of here, and the rest of them wondering how she can keep everyone afloat. Like Lance would have done. 

Keith’s hypersensitive ears don’t need to strain today to hear the faintest whisper of groans of pain and the sound of blood being spat in Ghennan’s face. 

When Lance is returned to them this time, he’s limping heavily in a Galra prison uniform, instead of his paladin armor, his arm is swollen and purple, and blood is covering his face. He says it looks worse than it is. He’s right too: the cuts are shallow, just very visible and bloody. Neither the arm nor the leg is broken, just beaten. Lance won’t tell them what did it, and they aren’t about to squeeze the information out either.

“What do they want?” Shiro asks, sounding a little hoarse. 

A manic little giggle escapes Lance, and anyone who’s been kidnapped with him before (that is, everyone) knows what that sound means. A tiny piece of him was just evicted from between his ribs with that laugh. Desperation. “I actually couldn’t tell you, Shiro,” Lance says, “they don’t ask anything. They just–” his eyes dim. Nobody asks him to continue for the same reason they don’t ask what Ghennan is doing to him. 

Once again, within ten minutes of Lance being returned, food cubes are dropped off for them. 

They try to keep it light. Optimistic, if not lively. Lance is still doing most of it. Keith even makes a comment about his own hair, which, after three years in space, is too long for Lance to call a mullet anymore, (“ugh, it feels  _ gross _ . I wish I could wash it”) just to get Lance to laugh and respond (“you should let me cut it for you,  _ guapo _ ” “was that an insult?” “sure, Keith, whatever keeps your hat on”). 

They discuss plans for escape, but it really boils down to whether they have the Lions on this ship or not. If so, they just need a guard or bot to slip up and give them an opportunity. If not, they need a more complex plan. 

Mostly, they let Lance sleep. He already looks tired. Hopefully, it will be someone else’s turn tomorrow. 

It was too much to hope for. 

Pidge had been up on watch, and she glares with mutinous silence as Lance is dragged away, feet sliding across the cold metal floor. 

“We’re going to save you, Lance!” she screams through the door after it shuts. “I promise!”

Then she sinks to her knees and cries. “It’s not fair,” she hisses between lips drawn thin. 

“It’s not fair,” Keith echoes hollowly. 

Hunk curls in on himself, tears slipping off of the battle-roughened surface of his armor.

Shiro tries to be anywhere else. Anywhere. As it stands, he can feel Lance’s screams of pain from miles and miles away– even though, logically, Shiro knows that Lance isn’t screaming. 

Keith can hear how close of a thing that is. 

Lance is dragged back to them for the first time that day– the fourth day. 

“Y’should see…” he wheezes, “the other g-guy.” His breath hiccups around one of the ribs on his left side. It’s broken. The most surprising thing is that they didn’t drag Lance back because his legs were messed up– they were in the same state as the day before. He just gestures to his wrists, where two long drags of baby-pink, brand-new scar tissue– cauterized by a Galra laser– outline his veins. 

“They bled you?” Hunk looks green, but he doesn’t vomit yet. 

Lance cracks a weak smile. “Like a medieval plague doctor.”

About ten minutes later, food cubes. 

He’s too weak to talk much today, but everyone tries to smile. For Lance. Shiro’s doesn’t even make it to his cheeks– and his hands self-consciously hover over his own wrists, even though the metal one is clearly not the same one that his original captors had slit. 

“We’ve got to get out–”

“–but they’ve got us stuck in this Cell–”

“–we have no information–”

“–no weaknesses–” 

The next day is the same. Shiro puts on a brave face.

“Take me instead,” he tells the bots. He knows Ghennan is watching from somewhere, or the Commander. “Take. Me.” His posture is convincingly heroic.

The team itches to volunteer behind him, but they know the argument is stronger if they support Shiro. They don’t want to throw Shiro to the wolves, but Lance isn’t even struggling in the harsh edges of the bots’ hands. They don’t want Shiro hurt either, but Lance looks like death. 

The bots don’t bother with Shiro, they just drag Lance away, limp in their cold hands.

“No!  _ No! _ Take me! Take me,  _ please! _ ” Shiro is met with the door, and he sinks into it. “Take me,” he whispers to the blank, gray slate. Keith doesn’t know what words he can offer Shiro, but he sets a hand on his older brother’s shoulder. Surprised, and then enlivened, Shiro whirls. “ _ What am I if I can’t even– _ ” it all falls out of him as fast as it came, and he backs himself into the corner next to the bed-slab, “I cant– can’t protect–”

“I know,” Keith murmurs. “I can’t protect him either.”

He curses his Galra heritage when those sensitive ears pick up one long, low whine, and then nothing for the rest of the day. 

Hunk cries for hours, and Pidge begins counting everything she can see in the Cell. She doesn’t stop counting until hours later, when Lance is dragged back to them. 

They throw Lance back into the Cell, and everyone rushes to catch him. He’s paler than they’ve ever seen him, and he’s got a poorly-cauterized wound glaring through a new hole in his prisoner’s uniform. Blood is still leaking like honey from the corner that they missed with the laser. Lance’s breathing is shallow, labored, and it gets more erratic as time goes on. 

“Lance?” Hunk ventures, and his voice is as fragile as his friend. 

There’s a small response. Just a noise. Barely that. 

“Lance, if you don’t answer me right now, I’ll–” Keith isn’t sure how to finish that. He just knows he needs– they all need– Lance to respond. They need to know he’s alive. 

“He’ll cut his hair!” Pidge cuts in. Hunk chokes on the horrible, wet laugh from his chest, and Shiro just stares blankly, murmuring to himself too quiet for even Keith to hear.

But Pidge got a rise out of Lance, whose eyes roll forward in his head to open groggily. 

Hunk pulls Lance farther into his lap. “There you are, buddy. I’ve got you. We’ve got you.”

Food cubes next.

Then they wait. They can’t do anything. Even if they knew what to do, they have nothing to work with. And Lance doesn’t have any serious wounds that haven’t already been cauterized– or, at least, mostly so. He’s just got significantly less blood than his body needs to survive and he’s in a lot of pain. A lot. It takes longer than it should for everyone to get Lance to eat his food cube, and the effort exhausts him. He sleeps dreamlessly for a while. Nobody else sleeps. They watch his chest rise and fall in broken, stuttering inhales, exhales. 

Nobody notices the sweat growing on his forehead, arms, neck, but they certainly notice when he starts to moan in his sleep. Hunk tries to soothe him, but Lance grows more and more agitated. He cries out, “Veronica,  _ lo siento! _ I’m so sorry!” 

“Hey, hey– Lance, buddy, you’re here–” Hunk murmurs softly.

“Get away from her, you bastard–” Lance screeches, and his bruised arm swings wildly while his eyes clench themselves shut. 

Shiro and Hunk work together to restrain him. “Lance, he’s not here!” Hunk finally shouts, “And Veronica is safe at home! She’s with Marco and little Luis, remember? She’s a hairdresser in Varadero!”

But Lance doesn’t seem to hear him. Dissolves into sobs when he can’t fight both Shiro and Hunk off at once. 

“What are you talking about, Hunk?” Pidge asks, voice brittle.

Keith adds, “What is  _ he _ talking about?” Delirium can be written off. They’ve all seen nonsense talk brought on by drugs and food poisoning and ten other things, but Hunk’s posture makes everyone inclined to believe that he knows exactly what Lance is talking about. Which is uncommon for hallucinations. 

“Lance’s dad,” Hunk bites off quickly, “Not a great guy. I don’t know much, I just know that Lance waited a year to enroll at the Garrison because there was a court case with his dad.”

“What for?” Shiro doesn’t want to ask it. He doesn’t want to know, but he feels shivers begin to wrack Lance’s body at the joints where he’s holding him down, and he has to.

“I don’t know,” Hunk answers. “And I don’t know if I want to.”

But Lance isn’t shivering normally, and he’s sweating. He keeps screaming for Veronica, telling her that he’s sorry, so sorry. He’s sick. And, sure enough, when they look back at that half-cauterized wound on his abdomen, the raw corner isn’t just red. Yellow puss is hardening around the edges and seeping out more than blood. Infected.

Without stopping to think about the best course of action, Keith turns to bang on the door to their Cell. 

_ BASTARDS _

_ YOU’VE GOT TO HELP HIM _

_ HE’S SICK YOU MADE HIM SICK _

_ HE’S GOING TO DIE  _

_ HELP HIM _

He doesn’t expect a response, he just expects to get something dislodged from his lungs. He gets the opposite when he swallows a gasp of air just in time to see Ghennan stroll into view in the food slot, face pensive and kind. The door slides open, and Lance is ripped from Hunk and Shiro’s grip by bots, despite their threats and their missed blows and the grip they try to hold. But the bots are unyielding, and Lance is stolen from them.

For a few minutes, they panic. What if what if what ifwhatifwhatif– but it’s all really rotating around one question: what if he’s gone? What if they killed him?

When Lance is tossed back in, no more responsive but less delirious, the team lets Hunk catch him. They’re starting to realize how little movement they’re capable of within the Cell. It’s a gut-clenching feeling. Cage. They get him comfortable on the bed-slab, head pillowed on Hunk’s lap, before they check him for new injuries. Surprisingly, none. Just the old ones. The raw edge that had been leaky and infected before has been treated with a blue sludge and more completely cauterized. There’s a little pinprick marker from an injection at the crook of his elbow. He’s not shivering, not sweating. They  _ fixed _ him.

Hunk breaks down in horrible, confused sobs. He’s so grateful that they saved him, but he knows what that means: Lance is going back to Ghennan again. Otherwise he wouldn’t bother fixing him up. 

Lance’s eyes creak open sometime later, and he smiles at them with all of the strength of a peony in a thunderstorm. 

“Hunk, buddy, why’re you crying?”

Which, of course, makes Hunk cry harder. 

“Aw man,” Lance wheezes, “They really did a number on me, huh? Do I look like shit?”

One arm, one leg bruised to shit. Face swollen with a black eye and more. Thin lines of red adorning forehead and neck and shoulders and legs. Scar tissue imprinted onto flesh to cover where the blood lept from. Ashen pale, and just this side of conscious. 

“You look  _ fine _ ,” Pidge snaps, eyes drowning and face muddy from all the tears, past and present and undoubtedly future. 

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Shiro’s voice is a ghost of him, haunting his face and shaking the invisible chains binding them to the Cell. It’s the first time they start to think  _ anything, anything to get out, anything. _

But Lance shakes his head. “Not my fault Ghennan has a crush on me,” he winks. Hunk laughs for Lance’s benefit, even though he doesn’t think that’s funny at all. They watch Lance wheeze around his broken rib for too long, while he flickers across the barrier of sleep and wake. 

“We’ve got to get out.”

“We’ve got to try.”

“Next time they come for him–”

“– and then we can–”

“– just have to wait–”

“– one shot.”


	2. Escape Attempt

They don’t sleep. They wait. For the time they call one day– as measured by the intervals of food cubes– they go undisturbed. Nobody takes Lance, or anyone else. They’re learning better than to hope for change. 

When the bots come for Lance, Hunk and Shiro form the vanguard and disable them with brute force. Keith and Pidge go for their bladed weapons and Shiro hands one blaster to Lance and holds one himself. Hunk carries Lance. They run. Directionless. No intel. Eyes wide, alert. This ship seems to be older than most Galra ships they’ve been captive on before. Decrepit, almost. They take down bot after bot– they seem to comprise most of the ship, no sentience to combat so far. They get about two run-down hallways behind them before they encounter the Commander, flanked by too many bots to count at a glance, and Ghennan beside her. The fight doesn’t last too long. The Commander goes straight for Lance– anybody can be the weakest link when they don’t have enough blood to stand on two feet– and the paladins surrender so she doesn’t snap his neck. 

The Commander escorts them back personally, Lance still tight in her grip. His breath scrapes past the edges of her finger-adjacent appendages where they wrap around his neck, barely any air getting through. They walk quickly. 

They reincarcerate themselves in their Cell. Pidge, Shiro, Hunk, Keith. Hunk turns to take Lance from the Commander, but she presses the button that closes their door and continues to carry him down the Hall. 

“ _ No! _ ”

“No, you have to give him back!”

“Please–!”

“Lance!”

Deaf ears. Everyone panics in their respective ways, but after a long while it becomes clear that they’re not getting Lance back. But they’ve been awake for what they don’t know to be 36 hours straight now, and it wears on them. They begin to pass out. First Pidge, then Keith, and then Shiro agrees to take first watch and Hunk goes down too. 

By the time everyone’s internal clock has woken them up, after one full rotation of the watch, food cubes are delivered. It would have been about ten minutes after Lance was returned to them, but Lance is still somewhere else. Somewhere not even Keith’s special ears can hear. 

“Are you sure you can’t hear anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Like, not even the bots in the hall?”

“I’m telling you, Pidge, I can’t hear anything.”

“Wait, nothing  _ at all? _ ” Shiro cuts in. Keith gives him a withering glare, and an annoyed nod. Shiro seems to be waiting for him to pick up some other meaning to his question. Hunk seems to get it, and then Pidge. Their eyes light up, mouths forming little donuts of comprehension. Oh.

Keith strains to listen, and everyone holds their breath. “I… I don’t hear  _ anything _ .”

“No bots,” Shiro whispers. 

“We could–” Pidge starts.

“No–! No, if we try again–… they could–…”

“They might have already, Hunk.”

“How will we find him?”

“First things first,” Keith interrupts, “How will we open this door?” 

There’s nothing in the Cell except for the paladins, their armor… and the handcuffs that had fallen off the first time they took Lance. Pidge and Hunk get to work. 

Without anything else to do, and feeling too uneasy to chat, Keith and Shiro go to sleep. 

By the time the next set of bots come by with food cubes– that makes it over a day and a half since they took Lance– Pidge and Hunk have fastened the handcuffs into a stiff, partially bending arm. It’s not elegant, but it will work. The hard part was getting the links to stay in place, instead of flopping all around in a useless chain. But they’ve got it now. 

Two more steps. Get Lance. Go. They just have to make it to the hangar. Find their Lions or some other kind of escape vessel. 

When the Commander comes in, Hunk hides the handcuff-arm behind his back. They expect her to bring Lance, but she just steps in, sets one hand on Shiro’s shoulder, and rips his metal arm clean off. He screams, but she takes the arm and leaves. 

On her way out, she hands Shiro’s arm to a bot that had accompanied her. “Send that to Zarkon with their Lions on the advance transport tonight. I want him to know that I have been successful. Tell him I’ve run his errand, now it’s time for him to let my brother out of that fucking cage.”

Wordlessly, the bot marches off. Wordlessly, Keith, Hunk, and Pidge move to comfort Shiro, gasping and pressed into a corner of the Cell next to the door.

“Tonight,” Keith breathes. “Tonight is the last chance.” After that their Lions are gone. With Zarkon. They can’t let that happen.

“We don’t even know what time of day it is,” Pidge whispers, a little frantic. “There’s no way to tell time in here!” She starts counting everything again, pulling a little on her hair. 

“Then we have to leave as soon as we can,” Shiro groans, starting to sort out the white noise of pain from the technicolor of his situation. 

“But Lance–”

“I know. I know… We’ll– we’ll have to figure something out.”

They don’t have time to figure something out.  _ BAM _ . The old ship jars to the left and all the lights flicker wildly, the door pops open on its own. Power dies and the team praises the glory of mechanics grown faulty with age. They run.

“I’ll go look for Lance,” Keith insists at a whisper, gesturing at his ears. He’ll be able to hear any distress cry from much farther away than his teammates. “Go get the Lions. If we’re not there when the power comes back on, go without us.”

“But–”

“ _ I won’t leave him here _ .”

“Keith–”

“Even if it’s just a body I’d be bringing back, I can’t leave him here.”

“Neither can we…”

“But someone needs to come pick us up with Allura and Coran– we’ll need a tech expert, all the firepower we can get– and Shiro, you need medical attention.” Blood drips in coagulating drops from the stump where Shiro’s metal arm used to attach. “Get out of here.” Their resolve to stay together as a team cracks. Keith is talking sense, and they know it– they just don’t know the unconscious bias that’s factoring in beneath the purple emergency lights illuminating the dark circles under Keith’s eyes. “I’ll see you soon,” Keith says, giving them a rough smile. It’ll either be minutes or it’ll be a lot longer, but for Lance it’s a gamble he’s willing to take. They’d all take that gamble in a heartbeat, for any member of the team, but not all of them feel for Lance what Keith feels. Wind ruffling a sand dune and the smell of flowers near a hot oasis. 

They split up. 

Bots are programmed to focus on fixing the outage before anything else, so the escape team encounters almost no resistance. They retrieve their helmets and bayards and clamber into their Lions and hunker down. Hiding. Biding their time. Waiting for Blue and Red to light up to join them for takeoff. 

Nobody interrupts Keith either, he traces lightning down each corridor and his eyes scan room identification printed in languages he can’t read. When he whips around a corner, he sees one Hallway ending in one Room. He knows what’s in the Room. The only other thing in the Hallway is the Commander. Keith thinks he can take her. He’s weaponless but fuck it. He’ll still try. 

But she isn’t interested in fighting him. Just snaps her tail at his feet to unbalance him and immediately shoves the but of her blaster at his forehead. That doesn’t bring him down. Barely. But she wraps one hand around his wrist before he can get his bearings again and pulls it at a funny angle to get him exposed, at which point she immobilizes his other hand and snaps her tail at his feet again. This time he trips. She doesn’t waste time with gloating remarks or showmanship. Just drops him and drags him back to his Cell.

She mutters an expletive. “Stupid fucking ship. I get the part where they can’t track an older ship, but how the fuck am I supposed to capture Voltron if it can’t even keep the doors shut in a debris-storm? Canthom, wait for me– I’ll save you, little brother. And then I’ll slit Zarkon’s goddamned throat, and his wife’s. Leave  _ their _ kid to cry over some corpses. Gods, it’s all such a mess.” Keith wants to respond, but his tongue feels like a water balloon filled with sand, and the rest of his mouth is no better. The Commander appraises him with all of that war-decorum overlaid with something like surprise. “No wonder Voltron can’t protect anyone. Fuckers are younger than Canthom.”

She throws Keith in the Cell. It’s colder without anyone in it. His suit keeps him warm. He wonders if Lance is warm enough, alone in that Room, where they’re doing god knows what to him, where he could be dead, where he could be wishing he was dead. Keith tells himself he’ll bring him home. No matter what, he’ll bring Lance home. Lance has to go home.

Thoughts echo around the slightly colder Cell until they have brought food cubes to him three times. Keith doesn’t bother asking the bots anything. Guards he can rile up. Angry guards are stupid guards, and stupid guards give free information like an ice cream truck gives smiles. With bots, any resistance is either coldly misunderstood or punished with a zap from the tasers at the end of their hands. Not worth it. Doesn’t bother. They have nothing for him.

He’s dozing when the bots open the door, and his arms are already open to catch Lance. 

Door immediately shuts, but the bots remain. “Three paladins, three extra days,” a mechanical voice recites, “Future attempts at escape will not be tolerated.”

What Keith hears is: three of your teammates are safe, and they’ll come to get you soon. Solace. 

But Lance shivers violently once, the wave of it wracking his body, and as it passes his blue eyes peel open like it hurts. “Keith– no.  _ No. _ ” He struggles out of Keith’s grip, and Kieth lets him go. “You’re not Keith!” Lance screams, “Keith is dead! He’s dead and so is everyone else! Y-you-you’re an  _ imposter _ .” And he launches at Keith, teeth bared and his hands go for Keith’s throat while he hisses, “ _ how dare you how dare you Keith is dead– _ ”

“Lance,” Keith coughs, “it’s– me–” but he can only suck in the barest pulls of oxygen through Lance’s poor attempt to strangle him. Lance knows better about strangling people. Must not really want to kill him. Not even something that looks like Keith. 

Fists loosen, but don’t let go. Gasping for full breaths. 

“No. Keith died.”

“Who said?”

“A- a bot delivered a message.”

“And you’re just gonna believe a Galra bot? Lance. It’s me.”

“K-Keith? No. How can I know it’s you?”

“I can tell you every weird thing Pidge has eaten ‘for science.’ Or I can tell you both our high scores on the training deck’s levels.”

“Why would the real Keith know  _ mine _ ?”

“Because you keep beating me, and it pisses me off so I have to check every time to make sure that I’m beating your score.”

“Alright, that’s a pretty Keith answer.” Lance tries at a chuckle, but it misses the mark because he’s still got his hands wrapped around Keith’s throat. Awkward release. When they both realize that Lance is straddling Keith at the waist, they have the audacity to be embarrassed about it. As if that’s the most significant thing here. Baking soda in the lemonade. “Where is everyone? D-d-did they–…?”

“No!” Keith catches himself by surprise with how loud his response is, and clears his throat. “No. They got out. They’re safe.”

“But you’re…you’re still here?”

Keith doesn’t answer that. 

A bot drops off food cubes, and they eat them.

“Are you okay, Lance? They had you– they had you gone so long we were worried.”

“Just solitary. Nothing I haven’t done before.” If the look in Lance’s eyes is to be believed, there was, in fact, something about this time that he hadn’t done before. When Keith remains silent, Lance admits, “It was– uh, it was cold. Really cold. Couldn’t tell time. They said you were dead.” 

“We’re not. We’re all alive, Lance.” 

“Even Hunk and Shiro and Pidge?”

“Especially them. I saw them escape.”

“Then why are you here?”

Keith doesn’t want to answer, but he doesn’t see Lance believing him without an explanation. “I was looking for you.” 

“And that got you caught.” Almost anger. Misunderstanding. Fear by many names.

“I wanted to–… I mean–…” There’s no way around admitting Keith’s true motives in all of this. “I didn’t want to leave you alone,” his voice is quieter than he means it to be, “even if I got captured, I couldn’t leave you alone.” Keith had known from the start he wouldn’t be making it back because he had known that wherever Lance was being kept would likely be heavily guarded. Calculated risk. He’s going to bring Lance home. Back to their family. 

Blue eyes don’t water. Almost-anger bleeds into compassion. Both are fed by worry. “Keith…” but Lance knows that anything he wants to say isn’t helpful. He’s not worth it, they’ll need more firepower to break them out, Keith should have left him– but none of that helps because Keith didn’t leave. He chose to stay. Lance doesn’t understand it, but he feels some of the endless cold from his last five days in solitary seep out of his bones. Thanks doesn’t seem right. Neither does condolences. Residual shivers pass up and down Lance’s body, and he feels his broken rib ache with the convulsive efforts, however small. 

Wordless, Keith moves closer. He means to just sit next to Lance, but Lance takes the invitation and curls into Keith’s side. Fuck rivalry. Right now they both need to feel close. Lance sleeps. Keith stays awake and counts both of their heartbeats– and he doesn’t know why he’s doing it aside from whispering instinct…  _ could have been dead _ .

But, of course, some indeterminate hours later, bots return. Fear rattles around in Keith’s lungs and he finds himself pressing Lance into a corner, crouching in front of him, trying to hide him from the bots. Not again. Not again. They can’t have him. Lance has to go home, they can’t take him again. 

The bots don’t press, they don’t know how. Their programming doesn’t extend that far. They just stand in the doorway until their commands are updated and a mechanical voice cranks through the gears and wires that make them up and say: “ _ Do you want more time in solitary? _ ”

And Lance, tucked behind Keith, flinches. “No, no,  _ no no no _ ,” he’s whispering. Keith has yet to see Lance panic, but he’s getting the feeling he’s close to seeing that happen. From his throat, a growl rises without his permission. “Keith, no,  _ please _ ,” and then, to the bots, “I’ll go. I’m going.  _ Just don’t put me back there _ .” 

Wiggling away from Keith, walking to the door, giving Keith a weak smile and saying “I’ll be back before you know it,  _ guapo _ .”

Lance is still the one protecting. 

Keith hates it, and when he begins to hear cries of pain from down the hall, he screams and throws himself at the door and curses Ghennan and every motherfucker he works with to a lifetime of whatever they’re doing to Lance. 

Nothing else to do but wait. Listen– even if he can’t stand what he hears. After some time, Keith falls asleep. Drifting off, he thinks about what Shiro said before:  _ please take me instead _ .

Sleep is not dreamless, and Keith wakes up in a sweat, fears fresh on his tongue, in the echo of a scream. 

Despite everything about him that might speak to the contrary, Lance is not a screamer. Not anymore. Worked it out of his system the first few kidnappings, and now he prefers joking with his captors. Spitting in their face. Cursing them out in Spanish. Keith loves him for it– and he won’t apologize for choosing now to realize it. But now, for the first time this captivity, after all they’ve done to him, and for the first time in Keith’s easily-recalled memory, Lance has screamed. Part of him wishes he hadn’t woken up for it. Another part is immensely glad he is awake when footsteps make computer-calculated time down the hallway, and the door is opened, and Lance is tossed into the Cell as haphazardly as every other time.

“Lance!?” 

Keith doesn’t care if he sounds desperate, or helpless, or anything else. As long as Lance responds.

No obvious injuries. Other than some leftover bruising on the limbs that had been dyed completely from it before, and some new cuts in novel places. Upper arms. Feet. Thighs. Hands. Shoulders. 

“Lance? Come on, buddy–”

“Veroni– Keith?”

“It’s me. Not dead,” he adds, when it looks like Lance might need that to hold onto. “What’d they do to you?” he asks, and knows he shouldn’t’ve. You never ask that. Nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to hear about it. Can’t ask. Terrifying to know what the sadist does with his favorite toy and understand that he’s not done yet either. But he asked.

“ _ They knew about Veronica _ ,” Lance whispers hoarsely. Wide eyes, too wide. Face pale in the dim lighting. 

“Who’s Veronica?”

“She’s–” and Lance blinks. Must decide that the answer doesn’t fit the time. Must not know that Keith would accept anything Lance said without batting an eye, if that’s what he needed. “She’s my sister,” he finally answers, recovering himself, “sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Don’t be, because Keith wants to apologize for everything over and over again. 

Food cubes. Biting into his, Keith recognizes dark circles tracing blue eyes. Chronic fear made visible. 

“You should sleep, Lance.”

Nobody moves. Silence lasts a beat too long, and then tension seeps out of Lance like oil through a sieve. He leans into Keith, and Keith wraps an arm around him. Warm. 

“Can you sing?” Lance asks, his voice is so soft, fragile. “Veronica used to sing when she was happy.”

Keith sings. He doesn’t know many songs, but whichever one he picks does the trick. Lance sleeps like the dead, and Keith counts their breathing. 

_ No further escape attempts will be tolerated _ , Keith remembers. So. Waiting game it is. But it’s getting worse. Screams reverberate in Keith’s ears, though Lance is sound asleep pressed against him. Can they afford to wait?

Three extra days of solitary for three escaped paladins and Lance was begging,  _ begging _ , for leniency before they took him. 

No other options.

Waiting game it is. 

But Keith’s skin crawls at the thought of having to give Lance up tomorrow when he screamed today. 

Keith sings for what must be hours while Lance sleeps. Anything he can remember. Teeny bops. Angst ballads. Country swings. Lullabies.  _ Veronica used to sing when she was happy _ . Keith isn’t happy, but he can sing if that’s what it takes to get Lance to sleep soundly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahaha good news for like 3 ppl on the team :)  
> but these two? uhh,,,, oof. 
> 
> if u wanna see what I'm up to, follow me on tumblr [ tumblr.com/blog/bmgh-writing ] or tiktok [ @ bmgh.writing ]
> 
> and, as always,   
> Scream at me in the comments, nothing brings me more joy!!!! :DDDDDD
> 
> See yall next Monday! Take care of ourselves out there <333


	3. Hurt, Cold, Angry, Guilty

Bots come for Lance again, and Keith knows this time that he can’t protect him. Can’t do shit but watch as he rises on trembling feet and follows them out with a defensive hunch to his shoulders.

Cheering Keith up all the way. “I can handle it, buddy. I handled it for 15 years before I met your sorry excuse for a haircut. I can take it. Don’t worry about me.”

Keith doesn’t know what that means, exactly. Tries for a smile anyway– wants to return the favor. Doesn’t know the words. But the door is shut long before he can work the right muscles to show Lance that he’s going to be waiting for him, right here, when he gets back. That he’s going to get him home. Somehow.

Waiting. Eyes drifting halfway to sleep. Ears torn between scanning vigilantly for the smallest sounds and smothering themselves with palms to block out someone else’s inescapable pain. Neither of those options is weighing the other out entirely, but the fight is real and stressful. 

Time that Keith doesn’t know to be approximately an hour passes, and then Lance’s voice begins to carry down the hallway. 

_ No. No no no. You can’t– you can’t do this! You can’t make me– No! STOP IT! KEITH! KEITH, NO! STOP! I’M SORRY, KEITH– STOP IT, PLEASE, DON’T– NO NO NO, PLEASE–! _

And on and on. For what has to be hours and hours, although Keith still can’t tell time. Can’t stand it. Comes to hate the sound of his own name– if it’s causing this much pain. First he screams back.  _ LANCE I’M RIGHT HERE IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY _ . Next he covers his own ears. Muffled, but he can still hear  _ everything _ . It’s not enough. Finally he breaks down and cries until there’s a puddle on the cold, cold, cold floor, and he falls asleep when he’s too exhausted to function. 

He wakes up to metal feet on metal floor and flesh dragging behind. Barely has time to reorient himself in time to catch Lance when he’s thrown in. Beatings again. Bruises, cuts, but mostly little tiny ash-gray lightning strikes where Keith can assume someone ran an electric current through Lance’s body because he’s seen those marks before on other members of Team Voltron during other incarcerations. 

Almost immediately, instead of several minutes later, food cubes. 

Lance isn’t responsive at all, but he’s awake and breathing. Blindfolded too. When Keith moves to take off the blindfold, shivering, tan hands swat him away weakly. Alright. Keith helps Lance eat his food cube before eating his own. 

“Lance? Buddy? I’m gonna take this blindfold off, okay?”

No response. Body full of tension, but it’s all coiled away like an overfull garden hose.

As the fabric lifts, the first thing Keith notices is that Lance’s eyes are bloodshot, irises dyed blood-red and sclera woven with the veins that supply them. Looks painful.

But there’s no time for that because the moment Lance’s eyes adjust to the underwhelming lighting and fix on Keith, he pounces with the vicious hand-to-hand skills typically reserved for any Galra soldier unlucky enough to knock his bayard from his hands. Pinned to the floor. Hands around the neck.  _ Squeeze _ . One foot on the ribs and another on the knee. 

“ _ Lance _ –” barely a wheeze. Body screaming to attack. He could flip his teammate like a pancake, especially in this state, but he won’t. Can’t bring himself to. Not even something that looks like Lance. But no oxygen is making it to his brain. Just the flashing warning signs of pain radiating from everywhere that Lance has him pinned. Can’t think straight. So instead of violence, one hand makes a shaky ascent to Lance’s face. A thumb over his cheekbone. Fingertips in his hair. “ _ Lance–… please–…” _

Teardrops land on Keith’s cheeks, even though he’s not crying. One, two, and then a steady flow of them like a desert rain clearing the dust from the air, and the red dye from Lance’s eyes. 

By the time Lance can see clearly again, Keith’s eyes are rolling back in his head. 

“No–  _ no,  _ Keith!” 

Just for a second though. Once he has air again everything reboots pretty fast. 

“Keith– are you– I’m sorry,  _ I’m sorry _ – I didn’t– couldn’t–”

“I’m okay.” Voice through a gravel filter. Voice through a woodchipper. “I’m fine, Lance.”

“ _ I’m so sorry _ –”

“Lance, I’m okay.”

“– put the blindfold back on. I can’t–”

“Lance… just, uh. Just talk me through it. What’s going on?”

Hands covering eyes, face planted on the floor. “Y-you… I can’t– you’re…  _ terrifying _ . Gonna kill me it hurts gotta kill you first or I’ll  _ die I can’t breathe _ –”

“Lance! I’m not going to kill you!” Keith cries. Feels more desperate than he wants to. All the times they’ve been prisoners of war in the past. Nobody has done psychological torture like this. Waterboarding? Sure. Sensory deprivation? On occasion. But this? Fucking this– whatever it is? Both of them want to vomit. “Lance, look at me–”

“But I’ll hurt you.”

“No. Gimme your hands. There we go. Now look at me.”

Trust built from months of fighting side-by-side in sentient robot space cats pays off in the form of tired blue eyes forcing themselves open. 

“Listen to me, Lance. I’m never going to hurt you. Ever. And I’ll tell you that as often as you need me to prove that asshole Ghennan wrong.”

Tension leaks from a body overwrought. “I-... I know. Logically I know that,” Lance admits, and it sounds the way rocks fall from a precarious ledge. “They just– th-they…”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Keith can guess it all from the effects anyway. 

“Thank you.”

Quiet. Not quite calm. Just this side of dark. Both hearing each other’s breathing from three feet apart and trying to keep their heads on, to tether themselves to the noise, base their sense of sanity around the one question:  _ is he alright? _

It’s not Healthy, that kind of thinking. Codependent. But right now they don’t need Healthy. Healthy can wait for them back home. Healthy can wait until they’re sure they won’t die. 

Pulling close to each other again, Lance falls asleep, and Keith looks after him, feeling the bruising on his throat constrict his airway to an abrasive trickle and thinking  _ yes, this is better, as long as he’s not hurt _ . It’s not Healthy, but neither is anything else on this goddamned ship. 

Footsteps. Bots. Glaring eyes and mutual reassurances despite hopeless helplessness. 

Waiting. Whimpering. Sleeping. Sobbing. 

Briefly, Keith wonders what it would take to get them to stop. Information? Someone’s death? Maybe if he pisses them off enough, they’ll switch targets. If the outcome for failure wouldn’t hurt Lance worse, Keith might be more inclined to try it. 

Maybe they’ve been here for too long, because Keith’s internal clock wakes him a few minutes before he hears the footsteps dragging Lance down the hall. Dragging. The first time, he had walked back, Keith remembers. But now dragging. 

Thrown and caught. Injuries categorized by violet eyes driven close to maroon with tempered rage. More bruises, more small cuts. Blindfolded again, and handcuffed behind his back. Keith removes the blindfold, and the cuffs fall off when the door slides shut. 

Unresponsive. Like last time. But with open eyes, tinged just a few shades deeper into blue than normal. 

Open eyes.

Unresponsive.

Keith panics. “ _ Lance!? _ ” 

And Lance springs to action. Keith is temporarily relieved that Lance isn’t dead, and immediately converts to horror when Lance begins to bang his head against the wall.  _ Hard _ .  _ BANG BANG BANG BANG _ –

“Lance! Stop! You’re hurting yourself!” Grabs both sides of his head to keep it away from the wall. Nasty bruising anyway. 

Reprieve lasts for seconds at most. Fingernails overgrown with time find their way to scarred arms and  _ dig  _ and  _ scratch _ until blood swells from the flesh beneath. Keith doesn’t even know Lance is doing it until he hears the droplets  _ plip plink  _ to the floor.

“No– stop,  _ please, Lance stop! _ ”

But he doesn’t, and he kicks Keith away with his bare feet for trying to restrain him. Anytime Keith immobilizes one part of him, Lance finds a new way to harm himself with something else he can move. Around and around they go until Keith finally stills all of him– Lance sitting in his lap with his arms pressed to his chest and held there, legs twined together– and tries to reassure him all at once.

_ It’s alright you’re okay I’ve got you it’s going to be fine we’re going to go home I’m going to take you home shh shh don’t cry Lance it’s okay I’m sorry I don’t know what else to do _

When Lance falls asleep, it’s because he exhausted himself trying to kick and squirm out of Keith’s hold. All night, Keith doesn’t let go. For a couple reasons.

Neither of them has a chance to eat the food cubes delivered to the slot in the door. 

Long hours waiting for the shitshow to start back up. And it does.

Metal feet on metal floor. Noise wakes Lance up.

“Keith?” A smile that tries for reassurance but falls short and lands on anxiety. “I don’t want to go.”

Keith doesn’t have answers. Stays up for hours every day thinking while Lance sleeps, but he’s still got nothing. It may be a shitty old ship, but the simplicity is its safeguard. There may be nothing but bots guarding it, but there’s enough of them to subdue two paladins, both weakened– and the bots don’t need breaks. The routine is easy to read, but there’s no soft spots in it. 

Failed escape means they hurt Lance worse. No Lions to get them home. No conscious guards to make stupid mistakes.

“I’m sorry.” Keith is crying. 

Lance tries to rationalize it all, “If I was stronger–”

“You’re already strong,” Keith snaps, “This isn’t about strength, it’s about how much fuckshit they can put you through before one of us snaps in half.”

Neither of them have anything left. No soft reassurances. No condolences. No encouragement. No laughter. 

Bots take him back, and Keith hears nothing that day. 

Metal feet on metal floor. Door slides open, Lance thrown in, Keith catches. 

No new injuries today, and no blindfold either, but Lance is unresponsive nonetheless. And cold. Horribly, achingly, hauntingly  _ cold _ to the touch. Fuck. No. Please please please  _ no _

But he’s not dead. Breathing. Heart beating. Both honey-slow and butterfly-weak. 

Just cold. 

Keith doesn’t know shit about hypothermia or really anything other than telling people to fuck off, but he knows that he is warmer than Lance, currently, so he wraps himself around him as completely as he can, and uses his hands to rub up and down Lance’s arms, cheeks, feet, hands. Friction generates heat. 

Food cubes are delivered around the time Lance begins to shiver. Teeth chattering and groaning with the ache of everything. 

“K-K-K-K-Kei-ei-eith-th-th.”

“Right here, buddy.”

“‘S an-n-n-noth-oth-ther-r b-b-b-bon-ndi-i-ing m-m-momen-ent-t-t.”

Another bonding moment. 

Bastard remembers the first one. 

But Keith can’t hold it against him. Lance is trying to get him to smile. So he does. “You’d better remember this one, or I’ll kick your ass.” Gracefully doesn’t mention how this is like the sixth time he’s held Lance close in the duration of this kidnapping. 

“H-h-h-how c-c-could-d I f-forg-org-g-get-t?”

For something close to ten more days they work this rotation. Bots take Lance. Keith falls asleep. Keith wakes up. Lance is thrown back to him in some state of disrepair. Food cubes. Lance falls asleep. Lance wakes up. Bots take Lance. Over and over and over and over and over again. Their tongues have tricked them into thinking food cubes taste decent. Lance’s optimism flickers depending on the torture most recently endured. Keith can tell within seconds whether it was the cold, self-harm inducement, forced aggression, replays of whatever happened with ‘Veronica,’ or plain old beatings, and he knows now how to respond accordingly. Lance hates the Veronica replays the most. Keith hates the self-harm the most. The nightmares set in around day four. Lance is too tired after everything to dream at all, but Keith wakes up kicking and screaming more often than not. 

“Y’think they’re still looking for us?” Lance wonders.

Keith scoffs. “It’s that or find two new paladins– and we all know Red is picky.”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t found us on her own yet.”

“To be fair,” Keith says thoughtfully, “she’s just a sentient robot space cat. There are limits to what she can accomplish by herself.”

Lance chuckles forcefully, then groans. “My ribs hurt, dude. My  _ everything _ hurts. You think they’ll let us go if I give them some bogus info?”

“Nah. They wanna execute us in front of Zarkon’s Royal Asshole later. Two weeks from now? How long have we been here?”

“Quiznack if I know. Could be tomorrow.”

“I feel like we should keep track.”

“If you can figure out how, I’m all ears.”

Keith does have an idea. So he and Lance spend some time parsing out the days, as measured by torture sessions and food cubes. Nineteen. Nineteen days, or the equivalent thereof. One jagged nail begins to work in nineteen bloody little dots on Keith’s forearm. Of course, Lance protests, but Keith does it anyway. One little drop of blood for every day spent staring at the same cold, blank, metal walls in the dark. 

Metal footsteps in a metal hallway and everything goes cold cold cold. Lance winces with every  _ tinp tamp tinp tamp.  _ Blue eyes hardening, preparing, bracing.

“Lance…”

“Whaddaya think, buddy: cold or Veronica today? I’ve got ten units on Veronica myself.”

“Lance…”

“Oh don’t look at me like that. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Lance,” and Keith reaches over and wraps him in a too-tight hug that breaks when the door slides open. “Don’t forget. I’m gonna bring you home. I swear to god I’m gonna bring you home, Lance.”

Door closes. Through it, he can hear, “Buy me dinner first,  _ guapo _ .”

But today is different. Less than a few minutes of Lance screaming for his sister, apologizing, and then another few of him begging and pleading for Ghennan to  _ stop please please just stop no no no please _ and then it all cuts out. Keith hasn’t even had time to fall asleep. 

Sensitive ears pick up the Commander’s bellowing voice. That’s new. She had stayed out of all previous torture. Pounding footsteps, sans bots, and smaller, shakier ones too. 

Door slides open. But this time Lance isn’t thrown into the Cell by unforgiving metal hands. He runs straight into Keith’s arms like he’s hiding. The Commander stands at the door, immobile and angry. Not entering, not a threat. Keith focuses on Lance first.

“I gotta get out of here they’re going to hurt me like dad hurt Veronica I can’t be here  _ necesito irme _ I can’t be here  _ lo siento  _ Veronica I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you  _ no pude protegerte _ –”

“Lance, buddy, what’s going on? You gotta tell me why the Commander is here. Lance, look at me,” and Keith’s hands maneuver Lance’s face to look him right in the eyes, “Hey. Hi. There you are. What’s going on?”

“ _ Keith, lo siento por favor  _ ¡ _ Créame!  _ I didn’t mean for this to–”

“Ignore him,” the Commander cuts in. Inhuman features almost look human, “He’s… not thinking clearly.”

“No fucking shit. What did you do to him?” Keith holds no cards here, has no power, but he certainly knows how to bluff. Right now he’s bluffing that he’ll actually be able to do something if he doesn’t like the Commander’s answer. “I swear to  _ fucking _ god if you–”

“I didn’t,” she hisses. Acid. Offended. “I killed Ghennan.” 

“Y-you did?”

War decorum makes way for ruffled quills and a furrowed brow. “Fucking hell, this is a mess,” she sighs. “Yeah. I never wanted any part in this bullshit but– my brother.” She makes an expression that isn’t human, because her anatomy isn’t, but it still conveys stress. Exasperation. “Zarkon has him and he won’t let him free unless I bring him the paladins of Voltron. Gave me the shittiest ship in the fleet, some bots running on outdated code, and Ghennan as a second mate and interrogator– but mostly that prick was just here to keep an eye on me and report back to Zarkon on my loyalty.” Her quills spike out a bit when she says, “I tried to rationalize it to myself– your lives for Canthom’s– but I saw what Ghennan was trying to do today…” she glances at Lance with two of her five eyes. “Canthom wouldn’t want his freedom bought like  _ that _ . And neither do I.”

“Lance, what were they doing to you in there?”

And Lance finally seems to be able to hear him. “The same thing my dad did to Veronica,” he replies hollowly, and then his legs give out. Keith’s body pitches forward to catch him and hold him up as best as he can, but it ends up being easier to sink to the floor with him and hold him there. 

Lance isn’t wearing pants anymore. 

Keith wants to vomit. 

Instead: “ _ You fucking bastard _ –”

“Keith, wait.” And Keith does, because it’s Lance. “She saved me. H-he didn’t… Ghennan didn’t–  _ do _ anything. To me. She killed him before he could. I-I’m… I’m okay, buddy. You can put me down now.” 

Keith lets Lance go– just a little. Not all the way.

“What do you want from us?” Keith hisses. What else can she take? What else could she possibly want that Ghennan hasn’t spilled in Lance’s blood and sweat and tears?

Sharp, cutting, she answers: “An alliance.”

“Go fuck yourself,” spat from between clenched teeth.

“Listen, paladin, I’d love to,” she deadpans, and her war decorum leaves the grace of her spine. “Leave you and your boyfriend to rot or go home or whatever the fuck. But Zarkon has my family too. What Ghennan has been doing to him? Zarkon’s bitch wife Haggar has probably been doing the same to Canthom. You have every right to hate me,” and any expression translatable between the sideways orientation of her teeth and the too-wide brim of her eyes pushes itself to vulnerability, “but at least do it for my brother. He doesn’t deserve it.” Her eyes flick to Lance, still pooled in Keith’s arms, boneless but gaining nerve. “What’s your name?” she asks. The paladins can’t see it, but the third hand, on her back, is twisting and fidgeting. Guilt. 

“Lance.” For what it’s worth, he’s getting color back in his skin and he’s holding his own head up now. His answer is less of a whimper and more of a greeting.

“Lance didn’t deserve it either,” the Commander confesses, before hardening her voice like the hints of the exoskeleton they can see at her joints. War decorum returning. “Which is why I killed Ghennan. Maybe I’m asking too much, but at least consider it. Please. For my little brother.”

They both think it over, looking to each other for guidance and finding themselves allies, neither leading and neither following. Is she lying? No, she couldn’t be. Why kill Ghennan if she was? A trick then? What would her goal be? She gains nothing by earning their trust if they’re really going to be killed soon. If she has a goal that entails betraying the Galra, she can’t have thought it out too far: in a rickety old ship like this, Zarkon would kill her in one shot to the fuel core. It wouldn’t make sense for her to have a goal that’s anti-Galra  _ and _ involves hurting them either– that would effectively make Voltron  _ and  _ Zarkon hostile to her. By neither letting them go nor giving them to Zarkon, she would be making herself an enemy of both Voltron and Zarkon, and there aren’t many other dominant military space forces that she could hide with. The only thing that makes logical sense is that she’s telling the truth. Both paladins come to that same conclusion in their few seconds of silence. 

Lance opens up first. Tentatively, “What would this alliance be? What would we be doing?” Keith’s hands tighten around Lance’s shoulders. Support.

“For now, nothing,” she explains, “As we get closer to Zarkon’s main base I’d use Ghennan’s transmitter to tell Zarkon that I have you both, and he’ll be ready to publicly execute you, but I’m going to kill him before that happens.” When they both seem uncertain, she coaxes, “I just need you to be bait.”

Defensive as ever, Keith snips, “You want us to wait around on the torture ship and just  _ trust _ that you delivering us to Zarkon’s very own fingers is a fakeout and that you’re going to save us?” 

“Essentially, yes. But neither of you will be hurt. With Ghennan dead, there’s no one to report on how I treat you to Zarkon.”

“Not even the bots?”

“Listen. Zarkon destroyed my home planet, killed all escapees except for me and my brother, gave me the shittiest ship he could dig up and some bots that were going to be scrapped for parts because they’re so outdated that he can’t update their programming remotely anymore. Your beloved Voltron Lions can’t find, track, or monitor us, and neither can Zarkon. We’re as close to isolated as possible. If you wanted, you could kill me, pilot this thing on your own– it isn’t hard– and somehow navigate back to your team, provided you can find them. But if you help me, I swear to my God, Jahseh, that nothing on this ship will hurt either of you, and I swear to Him that I won’t let Zarkon kill you.”

“Why should we believe you–” Keith starts.

And Lance immediately interrupts, “What was your home planet called?”

“It was Wanthie,” the Commander answers softly, “But the Galra called it Planet K-1419.” 

“We’re from Earth–” Lance confides.

“Idiot, don’t  _ tell _ her that!” Keith cries.

Frowning, Lance reasons, “She seems alright.”

“Lance McClain, you have Stockholm Syndrome,” Keith snaps. Half a joke. Half a caution. A lot has changed from the previous stalemate– all for the better, apparently, but it’s so much to trust. So soon.

“No,” Lance replies. Half a joke. “I just really appreciate that she saved me!” The Commander sees the change in the Cell before Lance does.

Because Lance does appreciate that she saved him. And Keith does too. But Keith knows he couldn’t. Nineteen days and he couldn’t save Lance. And that hurts. He feels his whole body droop, curl into itself. And he can’t find the energy to be angry. Not right now. Not at Lance. “I’m sorry.” He means it. Means it with every fiber of his fucking DNA because he promised Lance that he would get him home, but he couldn’t even do that without this random alien helping them first.

Lance looks confused, then concerned. “N-no. I didn’t mean it like that.” But it’s too late. Guilt is settling like stones to the silt of a river in Keith’s expression. 

The Commander seems aware of the awkward situation. She hands them a keycard with the Galra insignia faded in old age. “Both your weapons, and his armor, and your helmet are in a storage room in the next hallway over. All the living quarters are in the hallway after that– but the nicer ones are on the left side. I’ll be on the bridge.” Stiffly, she stalks out. Front two hands the picture of war decorum, and the hand on her back twiddling its four spindly fingers anxiously. 

The door doesn’t shut behind her, for whatever that’s worth, and the bots march off in various directions to fulfill new orders– or maybe no orders at all. On a ship this empty and decrepit, neither of them can imagine that there are a lot of duties to perform. 

“K-Keith, I didn’t mean–” Lance starts. 

“No, I know,” Keith says softly. And he does. But he also knows that they can’t afford to be mad at each other. Being mad at each other can wait until they are home, safe, Healthy– but right now they are none of that so they can’t afford to be mad either. For now, they’ll forget it– or else, bury it. “I just–…” Keith finds he can’t finish the sentence. What does he really mean anyway? How could he say it succinctly enough to matter? “A-Anyway, let’s at least get our stuff. Are you okay to move?” 

On shaky feet, they both stand. “Yeah,” Lance frowns to himself and visibly, purposefully brightens. “Of course, buddy.” Lying. They both know it. They lean on each other as they cautiously leave the known devil of their cold, dim, blank Cell. He tries to laugh, “It’d be nice to p-put on pants–” but when his voice breaks it sounds like he’s crying. He doesn’t realize for another several seconds, until they’ve turned the corner to the hall with the storage room where they’ll find their stuff, that he  _ is  _ crying. 

Keith grabs both bayards, and his helmet and turns around to let Lance change back into his paladin armor. The stretch of the black undersuit, the weight of the thicker protective armor– it feels like home, or close enough for comfort anyway. 

“Alright,” Lance says, “let’s go, um– explore, I guess.” 

Keith doesn’t say anything, just lingers a minute in the doorway to let Lance lean on him again. They each hold their bayard close to their chest. Wary of the shadows that aren’t appearing in the faint purple light of the ship’s uniform hallways. Terrified of the places that they have thus far existed in. Places they are now trusted to walk freely. It feels like their hair stood at attention the moment they walked themselves out of their Cell and hasn’t calmed down since. It feels wrong.

Strangest fucking captivity they’ve experienced to date, that’s for sure. 

Just like the Commander said, the next hallway has living quarters– enough for a full crew– and just like she said, the better quarters are in the left wing. These ones have been cleaned somewhat recently, and the reason why becomes clear when the quarters at the farthest end of the hall and the quarters closest to the main corridor show signs of occupancy. One is the Commander’s, the other had been Ghennan’s. Deciphering which is which is a task that requires more emotional and physical capacity than either paladin currently has, so they pick the quarters dead in the middle of the hallway to give themselves distance from both. It’s maybe twice the size of the Cell, if you include the little separate room with a drain for a toilet, and the bed is marginally larger and infinitely more comfortable. But these material things– private bathrooms, beds that aren’t slabs of metal, lighting that brightens and dims with the passing of time– add to the uneasiness Lance and Keith feel. How could these things feel comfortable after nineteen days of perpetual fear, perpetual pain? It’ll take some getting used to.

For now, anyways, they explore their new space. Tentative, like a feral cat in a domestic house– and this is a kind of domestication, it seems. Play nice with your captor until your use as bait has run its course, and then she’ll let you out and you can go home.

They’re still going to be here a while. 

Keith wants to investigate the rest of the ship. Plot escape routes. Plan for eventualities. Move around in this space so that when the shit hits the fan– and it always has, does, and will– he can be ready. He almost leaves too, expecting Lance to follow, because they’re a team, but Lance looks ready to collapse. His eyelids won’t stay all the way open. He’s sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall. He’s tired. 

So Keith sits down on the other end of the bed. Because they’re a team. “You wanna, uh, rest? For a while?”

Lance smirks. “Keith wants to rest? Isn’t that, like, against your religion?”

“I don’t do religion.”

“It was a joke,  _ guapo _ . Because you never sleep. Unless your body is physically breaking down– is your body breaking down? Because,  _ mira _ , shit’s kinda terrible right now, so I can understand if–”

“No, Lance, you just look exhausted.”

“What?” Lance’s eyes glint a little, guilty, and Keith can see it in the brighter lights of the living quarters. “No way. Besides, don’t let me hold you back– I know you were about to go out and look around.”

“Nah. Actually, I feel  _ pretty tired _ right now,” Keith enunciates with dramatic flare, “So I’m not going anywhere.” To make his point, he lays down against the wall, his feet toward Lance. He leaves a wide section of the bed unoccupied. “Be a shame if some loudmouthed idiot took advantage of that time to take a nap.”

Throwing his hands up, Lance cries, “Oh,  _ mierda _ , fine! Look, I’m taking a nap!” He occupies the other side of the bed and crosses his arms carefully (avoiding whatever is wrong with his ribs). “ Laying down and everything!” 

Keith nods. “Cool, next step is to make you look less like the walking dead.” He pretends very hard that he does not notice how close they are. After all, they were closer than this earlier, and that hadn’t meant anything, so neither should this. The inch of space between them feels so intimate though. 

Lance chuckles, but it’s dry and humorless and kind of pained. “Please do not  _ tell _ me how I look,” he begs sardonically. “These lights are very bright, and I am aware that they bring out the worst in my complexion.”

“Buddy, I’m just glad we’re both alive right now–” Keith’s tongue slips. Shit. he hadn’t meant to say something so dark. He feels like he’s got to follow it up with something nicer, and in this distracted moment, what his tongue provides is: “I couldn’t care less about how you looked,” which is both entirely too nonchalant (I didn’t mean it like I don’t care at  _ all! _ ) and way too personal (now he knows I think he’s pretty!)– nevermind the fact that Lance reads nothing into the words and everything into how flustered Keith becomes once they’re out of his mouth. 

Lance giggles, coughs, and they both settle down and feel the straightjacket sensation disintegrate from their skin.

“Veronica is my sister,” Lance whispers at some point, “she’s two years older than me,” his voice shakes, “so she was fourteen–”

“Lance, you don’t have to–”

“And he didn’t–  _ yo no pude _ – I had to  _ miré _ – I had to look–”

“Hey, Lance, buddy, it’s over, it’s–”

“And I saw parts of her chip away– her hair– _su pelo era siempre tan brillante_ – _pero_ she stopped showering, so I would put her hair _en un cubo de agua_ _y_ wash it for her so she wouldn’t have to _desvestirse_ – she went to school _pero_ they bullied her because her hair was _anudado_ , I was _un niño, no sabia como_ wash girl’s hair. I didn’t know.”

“I know, buddy. You didn’t know– it’s okay.”

“I learned though, Keith.  _ Aprendí a peinar el pelo de chicas por Veronica. _ ”

“Alright. You learned. That’s alright. It’s all done now, isn’t it?”

“S– yeah. Yeah, it’s over now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a long boi of a chapter-- but hey!! things are looking up for our lovely lads :DDDD 
> 
> you can find me on tumblr [bmgh-writing] and tiktok [bmgh.writing], but i have a new discord server for fanfiction writers and readers!!! here's the invite link [https://discord.gg/srw9uuWkRw] cant wait to see yall there!! :DDDDD
> 
> as always, Scream at me in the comments, nothing brings me more joy! <33333


	4. Dissociation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !! TW !!   
> Trigger warnings for dissociation, especially if you have issues discerning reality

When they wake up, the lights are still on their ‘day’ brightness setting, and the door to the quarters is still open, their bayards and helmets are still piled by their feet on the floor, and they are still wholly wrapped in each other in their armor and everything. It’s uncomfortable as hell. Lance wakes up first (he has to pee, and isn’t it a little miracle to be able to do so without having Keith right behind him?) and rolls out of bed and then curses himself for rolling out of bed when his legs and hips and chest and everything are still sore. Yesterday is already foggy for him, like the ghoulish outline of a nightmare in his memory– 

He tries not to think too hard about yesterday. Or any of the nineteen days before that. 

He pees, but he’s not even back from the bathroom before footsteps begin to pound down the hallway away from him and his name is being screamed. Shit. Keith. 

Lance tries to chase after him, but he’s a few seconds late to the game and the bruises drag on him and make his longer legs a moot point. 

“ _ Keith! _ ” he tries to call out, but his voice is scratchy. It doesn’t go far enough. Doesn’t reach. And this ship isn’t that big, but it’s big enough, and Lance has only been dragged down the one Hallway, with the Cell at one end and the Room at the other end. If neither of them ever passes that Hallway again, they’d be happier. But Keith is running right for the Room at the end of it. Afraid. Thinking Lance is back there. And Lance isn’t fast enough to catch up, keep him out of the Room– and

And Ghennan’s body is still there. And who knows what else. 

Yesterday is still foggy, and will likely remain that way forever. 

His ribs burn– something is definitely wrong with them, but ribs are tricky. The guts of bones. Who knows what it is. His hips are bruised too. And the most recent bleeding they did was from his legs, so there’s barcode lines of sensitivity down his calves. It all slows him down, so he gets to the Room too late to stop Keith from entering, too soon to help him stand up, but at just the right time to see him dry-heaving on the floor. 

“Keith? Buddy?” blue eyes dodge everything in the Room– they certainly know where it all is. “Let’s get out of here.”

But Keith is in no position to respond. He’s retching, although only a little bit of saliva is coming up anymore. Lance holds his hair back. It’s not Ghennan’s corpse– eyes already sinking, flesh already bloating, head pallid and drained of blood from the concave crush of skull where the Commander must have bashed his brain in– the paladins of Voltron have seen plenty of corpses in worse condition than this one. It’s not the corpse. Maybe it’s the different stuff lying around the Room. The knives probably weren’t out yesterday, but the restraints are crusted with blood and lying limp on the table. When Lance pulls up the hem of the bodysuit under his armor, his wrists are red, chafed, and scabbed. His ankles will probably be marked the same way. He hadn’t realized. 

Yesterday is still foggy.

But it’s not the various, commonplace items aren’t the source either. As Keith gets a hold of himself and begins to sit up, Lance brushes his hair away from his face and pats his back, but he sees the source of the distress. Pants. Dirty, more discolored in some spots than others by dust and blood and what might be urine. Nasty. But Keith gags again and whispers, “it was so dark in the Cell– I couldn’t see–” and then it hits Lance that the pants used to be his. For a dizzying second, his spine snaps with instant, fluorescent memory of exactly what happened yesterday. 

And then it’s gone again. And yesterday is foggy again. And relief washes away the pins and needles that have infected his skin. It’s a force of will that keeps Lance’s train of thought steady moving away from yesterday. He doesn’t want to think about yesterday. Doesn’t want to remember yesterday. He practically drags Keith out of the Room, and the door shushes itself shut and doesn’t reopen. 

Nothing happened. No danger. Why does it feel like there was danger? Why does Lance feel like something Very Bad almost happened? Is happening? The present moment is still foggy. 

“Keith?”

“Lance?”

It’s a little embarrassing to realize, after fifteen seconds of breathless panic, that they’ve been talking out loud, to each other, the whole time. It’s even more embarrassing that Lance can’t remember speaking at all. 

“You’re right,” Keith says. Lance has no idea what he’s responding to. He nods, but it must look foggy. Everything feels foggy. 

“Lance?”

“What?”

“You just look–” Keith stops himself. Lance barely looks coherent. Blue eyes bouncing off of every wall like they can’t orient themselves. Instead of panic, fear, or even disgust, Lance just looks vaguely lost. Keith prompts, “You were saying…” but Lance doesn’t seem to recognize the words. His whole face fogs over. Like he couldn’t pick up the threads of thought if he tried. He had just been talking to Keith. Like normal. Holding the hair out of Keith’s face. Telling him it was fine now. It was all done now. All done. 

But now it’s like Lance can’t even tell what it was that was done. 

It takes too long to meet Lance’s eyes, and they slide away like ice in a pan. “Lance, did you hit your head?” he asks. No response is forthcoming. Lance is breathing so slowly. So softly. “You’re freaking me out, buddy. What’s going on–? Do you even know where you are?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lance offers, but doesn’t provide proof. Instead, he blinks, and his face, so placidly foggy, wrinkles and his gaze goes thin and taut like razorwire– like normal– instantly. “We were– you– oh,” he stammers, and then shakily brings himself to his feet. “That Room was–… Very Bad.”

“Y-yeah. Um– you were–” he feels very off-balance on that razorwire line of sight. “You were gone when I woke up. I thought the Commander lied.”

The laugh that erupts from Lance’s throat is forced, but it warms up to reality. “Dude, I was peeing–”

“Then why didn’t you stop me!?” Keith barks back, growing irrationally self-conscious. 

Lance throws an arm around Keith’s shoulders. “I tried,  _ guapo _ , but my body’s kinda fucked right now, if you didn’t notice, and you were too far gone for me to yell.” 

Had he been? This ship isn’t that big. He could yell from one side to the other if he wanted. And Lance is louder than him. 

They go back to the living quarters. Lance chatters randomly the whole way back. 

“Wonder if they have any  _ real _ food. It’d be cool to eat something other than those little cubes,” he pauses, all of him agreeing that the sentence needed to stop, but two factions disagreeing on why. For a second, he looks like he might vomit. “Anyway. I wonder what time it is? Because it was early when we fell asleep, and the day lights are still on– so, like, did we only sleep for an hour, or was it like we slept for a good 24 and we’re just back to daytime after it’s been nighttime already? I just got these lights, ya know? In the Cell, it was too dark–” he stops again, suddenly out of breath for a second, before continuing like nothing happened. It’s painful to watch. “S-so, ya know? Like, I just want to get my circadian rhythm back,” he laughs nervously, sliding. “I mean, are the lights going to turn off in five minutes? And then it’s just night,” he laughs again, it sounds painful, “and it’s dark again–”

“No, it’s been night once,” Keith interrupts. It comes off harsh because he’s a little embarrassed too. 

It had felt like 3 am– it probably wasn’t, but it had  _ felt _ like 3 am. He had woken up– another dream– and the lights had been off and for a second he was certain that he was back in the Cell, and he was waiting for them to come in and take Lance again and he had cried because there was nothing he could do and then his brain finally remembered yesterday, and his body felt the slight give of the shitty barracks mattress, and his eyes recognized that this was just a bit darker than the Cell, and he settled back into the mattress and fell back asleep until it got colder after Lance got up, and his sleep-muddled brain got confused again and thought Lance had been taken and his body sprinted down the Hall before he could think. 

All that to say, Keith knows the lights have dimmed for a nighttime cycle once. 

“Man, we were really tired, huh?” Lance laughs. What’s wrong with him? Why  _ wouldn’t _ they be tired? Does he really not–

Oh. 

It was a joke. 

Belatedly, Keith reciprocates the laugh. 

Lance asks, “You wanna go exploring?” as an excuse to ignore the awkward pause. “The Commander said there wasn’t anyone except her and the bots– well, and– ya know– Him. Ghennan. S-so, uh, there shouldn’t be anyone here except her and the bots. And she’s piloting the ships. Perfect chance–…” he sounds less and less certain of himself as he talks, “right?” 

“Sure,” Keith replies. 

“Great! Let’s go then. Maybe they have a cafeteria! I’m starving!” 

And they go wander around. And Lance keeps talking the whole time like he didn’t just see Keith vomiting his stomach empty next to Lance’s old pants, stained with blood and piss and sweat. 

They don’t find anything as refined as a cafeteria, but there’s a storage room full of boxes of nonperishable food. There’s a whole crate– six feet by six feet by six feet– full of food cubes. That could last the two of them months. After nineteen days of nothing else and something over twenty-four hours since they last ate, the sight makes them salivate. But, luckily, that’s not all that’s in the storage room. There’s also a row of crates filled with different flavors of nutrient pouches, labeled in a language old enough that their helmets can translate, although knowing the names of the ingredients in English characters clarifies nothing about taste when the ingredients are still alien. 

“Hunk would probably know,” Lance pouts, words dripping loneliness.

There’s also a few crates of spare robot parts and two crates of medical supplies, one with the normal stuff and the other with medicines clearly intended for different bodies– like the Commander’s, or Ghennan’s. The language on these items is newer, and their helmets can only partially translate it– thanks to what Pidge has started to untangle in the mess of languages from throughout the universe and code into the castle ship and associated systems. 

“Do you think a message would reach them from here?” Lance asks, whispers, begs. 

Keith shrinks under the weight of it. “If we’re close enough to get a signal,” he says, but there’s not much hope in his words. They both try anyway. Nothing. Nobody. 

If they took over the ship, they could pilot it back to known space, maybe. Assumedly, it has some kind of navigational system. They could find their way back to their family, to Voltron. But they’d have to kill the Commander to do it. And give up on this round of everyone’s favorite game show,  _ Can We Kill Zarkon Yet? _

The latter, giving up on Zarkon, they could do right now and feel no guilt. They’ve failed at killing him before, they’ll probably do it again. Like the Commander said, they’re just kids– even when they forget that. 

But they would have to kill the Commander. And they’ve killed before, sure, but this feels heavier. She saved them. It was a clear disadvantage to her, she’s got her own, private war going on, and she still saved them. And she wants to save her brother too. And they think of Pidge, and the way her eyes go icy every time there’s prisoners on a Galra ship, and the way she’ll go out of her way to free every single one, even when it puts her in danger, and she’ll ask every single one the same question–  _ have you seen my brother? _

They don’t want to kill the Commander. Even if it means they have to go along with her plan, they don’t  _ want _ to kill her. The fact that they get to have that choice shines brilliantly, like an expensive gift from a distant relative, in their hands. 

They go back to their living quarters with as many of the food cubes and nutrient pouches as they can carry, and they shove them all in a drawer underneath their bed, and then they go back for the human-ish medical crate, and they put that in a corner of the living quarters. Then they shut the door and lock it. From the inside. Another gift. They hadn’t even encountered any bots. They feel spoiled by their good luck. 

When they feel like they can look at each other without thinking about the Room, Keith cracks first. “Hey, can I see– uh,” he starts, then realizes he doesn’t exactly know what to look for. Where, exactly, is Lance injured? He starts again, “We should treat your injuries. They can still get infected in space.”

Lance wrinkles his nose. “You’re probably right– especially in unwashed suits,” he says. He scratches his wrists self-consciously, so Keith knows they can probably start there. 

He digs through the unorganized box of medical supplies until he finds something gauzy and self-adhesive– like a bandage-ish, but it’s doused in something too. Maybe it’s medicated? Who knows. Next, Keith finds some oddly-shaped, but otherwise normal cotton swabs (they’re probably not actually made of cotton though). The little living quarters they’re in has a sink in the bathroom, and he fills up a big cup with water and sets it on the shelf above the bed. 

Lance has rolled up his sleeves to expose wrists rubbed raw enough that the skin has been almost entirely replaced with a wide bracelet of scabbing. Keith’s no expert in first-aid. Pidge and Shiro are better at that. But he’ll do what he can, so he dips one of the weird-shaped not-cotton swabs in water and starts to dab it around Lance’s wrists. Lance pulls his hands back, like an instinct, almost immediately.

“Huh?” his voice has that airy quality it had in the hallway again. Like he’s been zoning out. “Oh, sorry, buddy. Didn’t see you there.” He chuckles nervously, and coughs. He can’t fix his eyes on anything again. Occasionally he’ll meet Keith’s eyes for a second before his attention floats away to glance at the water cup on the shelf, the medical crate in the corner, the open door to the bathroom. Like he’s trying to find the ground on which to plant his feet. 

“Hey,” Keith tries, setting the wet not-cotton swab on the bed and using both hands to cup Lance’s face, “Lance.” 

And it works a little. Lance looks right at him, and notices his hands, and giggles probably more flatly than he meant to. “I don’t actually remember why my wrists look like that, Keith. Are we sure they’re my hands?” 

Which is just an absolutely  _ unhinged _ thought. “Wh-who else’s hands would they be?” Keith stammers. 

“Uh– um– I don’t–?” Lance tries to reply, trembling, “I’m not sure?” He glances at his hands again. His voice is taught and thick when he explains, “They just don’t look like mine?” Keith feels his brow furrow, and Lance hurriedly extricates himself from Keith’s careful grip on his cheeks to stare directly at his hands. The wispy quality of his expression earlier has been overwritten with something desperate and frantic like a sprint through barbed wire. He’s turning his hands over and over, and when he glances back up to Keith he tries to laugh it off but it comes out strangled. When he starts scratching at the scabs, Keith puts a stop to it. Takes both hands in his and covers them so Lance can’t see them. 

“Lance, they’re  _ your _ hands–” Keith tries. Lance nods, but it’s forced. He doesn’t believe him. “Your wrists got rubbed by the restraints– doesn’t it hurt?” Lance shrugs. Keith thinks fast, “Okay, how about  _ my _ hands. Do they feel cold or warm to you?”

“Warm. You’re always really warm.”

Trying not to squirm at that, Keith releases Lance’s hands and puts his in the air. “So your hands feel colder now that mine are gone?”

“Yeah?”

“So you can feel them,” Keith reasons slowly. He’s doing his best not to fuck this up. “Because you can feel your hands. Because they’re yours.”

Lance nods again, but this time it looks less doubtful. “I guess that makes sense,” he says. It’s a start. Fuck,  _ why _ do they have to start there? What happened behind those ocean-blue eyes? “I just–” Lance chuckles vacuously again, “can you do all the stuff with my wrists so I don’t have to look at them?” 

“Sure, dude.” 

Very carefully, Keith wipes Lance’s wrists down with water, and then he wraps them both in that medicated gauze stuff. Lance tells him it tingles a little– not in a bad way. 

“I, um, I think my ankles too–” Lance whispers hoarsely when Keith is done. He’s been staring at the ceiling this whole time, but now his eyes look down to the boots of his paladin armor. He doesn’t seem to be losing track of the identity of his feet, so Keith lets him remove his boots, roll up his undersuit, and try to wash off that scabbing– but no. It’s clearly painful for him to bend so far over. 

“My ribs,” Lance admits, “Dunno what’s wrong with them though.”

So Keith bites his cheek and cleans and wraps Lance’s ankles– and while he’s in the area he sees the parallel lines where they bled him something like four days ago, so he handles those too. They’re thin, but deep into his calf, and Lance hisses when Keith touches them. Keith has apologized more in the last half hour than the entire rest of his life combined– or so Lance jokes. 

When Keith asks if there are any other injuries, Lance shrugs and answers, “Probably not? Just bruising all over.” Keith frowns. That’s not a really definitive answer. He feels like it should be more definitive. Lance laughs and flicks him on the forehead with just enough force to make him unclench his brow. “Nothing you can do about bruises,  _ guapo _ .”

“Stop calling me that,” Keith grumbles. He still doesn’t know what it means. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance's episode at the end with the hands used to happen to me a lot in high school! My friends would have to remind me that my hands were mine or I would start picking/scratching at my wrists trying to feel something and/or find the scars where someone else's hands had been surgically attached lmaoooo (it is funny bc it is over and Humor is a coping mechanism)
> 
> I hope yallre ready for things to start looking up,,,, i think they have been Hurt enough hbu? XD
> 
> also!! starting this Friday I'll be posting south park content on Friday! this friday will be a short post-apocolypse scenario that came to me in a really vivid dream, and after that it'll be a Big Boi (50k+) abt craig, tweek, token, clyde, kenny, and butters in high school! :DDDDD maybe ill see some of u there? >w>  
> follow me on tumblr (bmgh-writing) or tiktok (bmgh.writing) to get more updates!
> 
> and, as always,  
> Scream at me in the comments, nothing brings me more joy! :DDDDD


	5. Arrival

For two days, as defined by light cycles– light, dark, light dark– they stay holed up in the living quarters. Like anxious stowaways, waiting to be outed and thrown overboard to sharks. They sleep, mostly. For a couple of guys that have done nothing but sleep and sit still and sometimes talk a little for a few weeks, they’re fucking  _ exhausted _ . Terror will do that. 

Sleep. And sleep. And sleep. For two light cycles that mark their hazy perception of days, they sleep. Keith changes Lance’s bandages because he can’t reach the ones on his legs and– while he seems alright with the idea that his hands are his, and believes it now– he doesn’t like to look at his hands for long. 

“Funny, huh?” Lance had said with a strained laugh, eyes cast to the blank, metal ceiling that somehow looked nothing like the one in the Cell, “paladin of Voltron. Been held as a prisoner of war more times than my fingers and toes could count. Tortured at least half those times.  _ Now _ I develop psychosis? What’d these guys do different?” 

The question Lance doesn’t ask becomes clear over the course of these two days:  _ what did they do to me _ . Because it becomes increasingly clear that Lance isn’t remembering anything from those nineteen days very clearly. His eyes fog over with distant, intangible confusion if anything about it is brought up more deeply than a single, passing comment. Keith doesn’t want to talk about it, but when he asks, Lance remembers some of being in the Cell with Keith, but nothing about what Ghennan did to him in the Room. Especially nothing about the day the Commander killed Ghennan. That day is absolutely bleached from Lance’s mind. 

Keith would be happy to let it stay that way. Not remembering. Even if it’s unsettling when Lance zones out of a conversation because something one of them said triggered his fugue. Even if it’s impossible to explain why Keith sits straight up in bed in the middle of a dark cycle and Lance wakes up too because they’re still sleeping in the same bed because the fear is so much  _ worse _ if Lance isn’t there to remind Keith of where they are. When they are. 

Not remembering is still better. 

But by the third day they’re done sleeping. And staying, waiting and awake, in the living quarters feels too close to a caged animal. Lance says why not go see the bridge– see if the Commander is still as amiable as before. Ask how long before they reach Zarkon (how long before they can go home). Ask if there’s an actual plan or not.

Keith says that sounds alright. As long as they go together. The thought of being separate from Lance for too long, too far, is becoming increasingly terrifying to Keith. He knows it’s not Healthy. But fear is still fear and Keith reasons with himself that Healthy can wait with safety back at the castle-ship. Back at home. 

The Commander, in all of her nearly seven feet, jumps a little when they step onto the bridge. She’s a little unkempt, and probably hadn’t meant to be talking with anyone– with them. She runs all three hands through her quills, straightening them in a way that she likes, and then pulls on the edge of her uniform to make it look like she’s changed clothes recently. Then, once again, she’s all war decorum.

“Oh– uh, Lance, right? And… I don’t think you gave me your name.”

“Keith. And, to be fair, you never gave us yours either.”

All five eyes look nervous, and three of them are searching the bridge for a distraction. Her third arm itches at where her service uniform covers half of her neck. Keith sees the edge of a tattoo there. Not a willing one, he’s guessing. “My family called me Cruyh.”

It’s a hard name for a human tongue, so neither of them try to say it. 

“How long have you been hunting Voltron?” Lance asks casually– and his tone is like angel’s food cake, light and fluffy, and Keith envies Cruyh for the attention of such a carefree voice.

She shrugs, “Maybe a few phoebs?”

To himself, Keith thinks it’s a good thing she doesn’t actually want to kill them. If Cruyh can find them in two months with a shitty ship and no help, then she’s probably scarier than Zarkon– who can only find them when they come to  _ his  _ planets picking fights, or on the off chance that his witch-wife’s magic shit ends up pinpointing them, which is rare. Give this woman an actual army and she could serve Voltron up like a hunter might serve up some venison. It makes Keith wonder if she’s a prodigy or if Zarkon’s incompetent. Maybe both are true, who knows. 

“How do the ship controls work?” Lance asks, in that angel’s food cake voice. “I’ve never seen controls like this.” Maybe Keith has heard that voice before. When Lance spoke to Pidge or Hunk or Allura– hell, maybe even Shiro or Coran. But never to him. With Keith, Lance is all walls and competition. Keith’s been competing all his life– competing with bigger kids on the playground, competing to test into the Garrison on scholarship, competing with his classmates for the best scores so he could keep that scholarship. And then with Lance too– Lance who spoke to everyone else with a voice like angel’s food cake. A voice that sounded like a laugh. How could Keith not be jealous when Lance spoke to him with a voice like 100% cocoa, a voice that sounded like the words ‘prove it’? 

Jealous or not, Keith isn’t about to leave Lance alone with the Commander. He waits sullenly in the corner while Cruyh gives Lance a surprisingly comprehensive tour full of jargon that neither of them understand because Cruyh is not using the technical terms for anything because she was not, technically, trained to pilot this craft.

“And you can navigate and everything by yourself with no crew?” Lance says.

Cruyh shrugs, “Whether or not I can isn’t the question– there’s nobody else. The bots are too outdated to be able to pilot autonomously.” She pointedly doesn’t mention Ghennan, whose corpse is still acting as a rug in the Room where she bashed his head in. 

“Where  _ are _ the bots?” Keith pipes in. He hasn’t seen one since they were allowed to walk free. It’s been four days. 

Cruyh looks uncomfortable under Keith’s scrutiny. The hand on her back twiddles with a few quills. “All but a few are deactivated in the cargo hold,” she says with more of an embarrassed look than any military commander would ever wear, “I thought they might make you nervous.”

The bots did make them nervous. Keith knows that the bots are old, easy to destroy, and only act on orders. They’re only unnerving because of the previous task they held of dragging Lance down the Hall every day. Not as scary as, say, Ghennan, because they lack that sentient volatility. 

Cruyh is still talking– “I have one that brings me food, because I never remember to eat, and a few that check on maintenance things around the ship, but they both use the crawlspaces designed for bots to move unseen in these old ships. I–… I felt that after everything that had been done– everything I was complicit in doing to you both, you deserved at least this much peace.”

Keith doesn’t reply. His throat feels flooded. It’s such a little thing, not having to look at the bots, but this random, seven-foot-tall alien lady covered in quills and eyes and arms thought to do that. For them. He’s getting soft– that’s what these tears mean. If there was a training deck, that’s where he’d go and get the shit beaten out of him until he’s weak in the knees, toughen him back up, but there isn’t one so he has no excuse to escape the emotion. Gratitude. Soft and real and absolutely unwelcome. 

Lance doesn’t seem to be struggling with this at all. “Thanks, Commander,” he says, voice chipper but he  _ means it _ . Then, changing subjects quickly and adeptly, Lance asks, “About how far to our public execution for His Royal Asshole Zarkon?”

Cruyh’s eyes all go in different directions– one looks at Keith, another at Lance, two to the ship’s controls, and the last one looks between her feet. “About one movement, provided we don’t hit any solar flares.”

One week. 

Keith wants to stay tucked into the living quarters the whole time, but Lance insists that neither of them are going to be shut-ins and drags Keith around the ship each day for any reason he can think of. 

Lance says, “Come on,  _ guapo _ , I wanna stretch my legs.”

Lance says, “D’ya think we should check on the Commander? She seems lonely up there in the bridge by herself.” And Keith goes.

Lance says, “Hey, hey, let's go poke at the holes in the walls where the bots go. Come on, Keith!” And Keith goes.

“Can we go walk around? Please. I… I don’t wanna forget that we can.” And, of course, Keith goes.

Every day Keith goes with him all around the ship– the empty hangar that had briefly held their Lions, the bridge, the other wing of the living quarters hallway, what would be a dining area if there were enough people to use it, storage closets, wherever. They even peek into the cargo hold, with its hordes of bots in stasis, waiting for activation– but that shit’s eerie, so they don’t go back. 

They learn a lot about the Commander during the week– she’s  _ extremely _ young for her species; usually her people don’t come of age until they’re about 30 years old (or deca-phoebs old, whatever), but Cruyh is only 23, which the Galra had said was good enough because Galra come of age at 15– she used to have a lot of brothers and sisters, and on her planet, Wanthie, every family lives together in big houses, so she had been close with her aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and several people that she calls almost-blood-relations; she and her brother Canthom are the only ones left, as far as she knows– her parents named her Cruyh, but her cousins all called her a word that sounded close to that in her language, but translates to “butterfly-brain” because she was always daydreaming– she  _ hates _ the food cubes, and loves the nutrient pouches that are labelled to include an ingredient called ‘Nazng;’ apparently it tastes like a kind of rock Cruyh used to eat at home (and Keith and Lance shouldn’t be as surprised as they are that there was a species of people that ate rocks on some planet out there). 

More than just fun get-to-know-the-person-that-imprisoned-you games that, to Keith, reek of some confused cousin of Stockholm syndrome (even if Cruyh never had much more of a choice and Keith or Lance in any of this), they go over the Plan.

So, on the last day, when Zarkon’s imperial fleet of starcruisers (or whatever he wants to call it) is in view, they’re ready. 

There is no gaping maw of ogling onlookers that receive them, the way someone might think they would when one of the Galra fleet brings back two paladins of Voltron. No, they dock their shitty ship in a covert hangar below the engines, to the left of where Zarkon dumps his trash into the cosmos. 

Cruyh had told them it might look like this. “Nobody in that nationalist fucking cult wants to admit that someone who looks like me did a good job,” she told them, “They’ll let me be present at your beheading, but the focus will be on you and Zarkon at that ceremony, and nobody is gonna look twice at me, war hero or not.”

Keith and Lance have been bound, their hands in front of their bodies and blindfolds over their eyes. Cruyh had first suggested bags over their heads, but Lance had gotten queasy and preferred not to. Said it made him claustrophobic. So blindfolds. Their helmets are stowed, hidden in the ship for later retrieval.

Both paladins count their steps– the way Shiro trained them– even though Cruyh said she promised to get them out of this ship alive. 

One-hundred-eighty-three steps forward. Left turn. Sixty-six steps. Left turn. Ninety-two steps. Doorway. Fifteen steps. 

“Ah. Commander 57. I see your mission was–… hm,  _ moderately _ successful. Zarkon did ask for all five paladins, however.”

“Shut it, Xarxes, if Zarkon wants the other three he can get them himself or send me back out to do the rest of his job for him.”

“Oh, 57, you can’t possibly think he’ll acknowledge your efforts.”

“I think he already has. I have a confirmation code to stand next to him on the podium when these two are executed.”

“Wha– how cou–”

“Am I excused, General Xarxes?”

“We– sure, yes, fine. Go get these two booked in detention level 14.”

“No way. I am not leaving these two in some isolated cell so you and your cronies can take this from me.”

“I guess fraternizing with the enemy is to be expected from someone of  _ your _ background. How about this, 57, if you want to keep that Voltron  _ filth _ nearby, use your own quarters, but to ensure they don’t escape we’ll lock you in until the execution in two hours.”

“You fucking  _ feyackt _ –”

“Shall I report you to Zarkon for using your home language, 57?”

“No– Fine, they’ll be in my living quarters. Lock the doors tight, you sick fuck.”

“Oh, I  _ will _ . And be assured, 57, I’ll be telling Zarkon all about your  _ doubts _ in his higher-ranking officials the moment the execution is over.”

“Great. Looking forward to it.”

Right turn. Five-hundred-and-two steps. Down two flights of stairs. Left turn. Eighty-nine steps. Voices of people in all languages– not just Common– there’s old voices and infant voices and a few voices surprised to see Cruyh.

“Cruyh! You’re back!I was getting worried Zarkon sent you on a suicide mission.”

“He did. I lived anyway.”

“Who’re the prisoners? Are they not going to detention–? Oh, while we have you, my mate– you remember Deynthuj, my mate?– she made you some treats. You really should get out of that military singles housing they have you in. That Yexha girl is interested in you, say she’s your mate so you can get family housing–”

“These are two of the paladins of Voltron. I’m taking them to my quarters so nobody else can claim they captured them.”

The surprised voice stutters to a halt. The paladins can imagine whoever the voice belongs to staring. 

Cruyh continues, “They’re locking me in my quarters with them until the public execution later today. About two hours from now. I wouldn’t recommend bringing the kids.” Clearly, Cruyh is warning them. “Maybe take the day off. Maybe tell everyone down here to take the day off.”

“Cruyh, you can’t be serious.” She doesn’t respond. They breathe a slow breath. “Alright. Okay. But you keep yourself safe. Canthom wouldn’t want his freedom at the expense of your death.”

“Thanks, Twanqhim.”

“Oh– and Cruyh?” There’s some rustling, and Twanqhim gives something to Cruyh that makes her drop the lead she had to drag Keith and Lance around. Twanqhim presses soft, inhumanly-shaped palms to one of each of Lance and Keith’s hands. “Take care, you three,” they say, “I can’t– I can’t tell you what it means to us that you’re here.”

Four-hundred-ninety-one steps. Doorway. Left turn. Seventeen steps. Flight of stairs. Right turn. Twenty-four steps. Doorway. Three steps.

“Alright, we’re safe here. I’m gonna take off the blindfolds.”

“Isn’t someone gonna come lock you in?” Lance asks.

“Maybe be an asshole while they’re doing it?” Keith adds. Lance giggles. Cruyh smirks.

“They can do that remotely,” she explains, “That door locked the moment I shut it behind us. It won’t open until it’s time for you two to be paraded in front of Zarkon to get your heads chopped off.”

“But our heads aren’t  _ actually _ getting chopped off,” Keith says. Sue him for being cautious.

Cruyh nods seriously. She doesn’t seem offended by Keith’s distrust. Maybe she’s used to it. Maybe Keith is being an asshole because he’s scared. Maybe he should stop kicking Cruyh while she’s down. 

Her living quarters are almost smaller than the ones on the ship. There’s a narrow, uncomfortable-looking bed, and a blanket that’s got a hole near one corner. Against the opposite wall, a kitchenette that consists of one warm-storage cabinet, one cold-storage cabinet, and one hot-plate. A door next to the kitchenette probably leads to the bathroom. That’s it. No wonder Twanqhim was trying to convince her to move out. 

Cruyh sets the parcel– a container with a weird, beanish shape– that she received from Twanqhim on the floor between them. Carefully. Maybe it’s fragile. Maybe it’s important. Maybe Twanqhim has sent them something that will help them. But when Cruyh opens it, it’s just little buns. Nine of them. Cruyh sees them, inhales the smell, and sighs.

“Twanqhim might be more scar tissue than person,” Cruyh says, “but they make the  _ best  _ food. You’ve gotta try these. I forget what they call them, it’s some word from their planet, I can’t ever say it right so I never order it, but they’re  _ so good _ .”

And Cruyh looks… happy. Unexpectedly. Weirdly. She digs into her little bun-thingies and she’s smiling with her sideways mouth and she keeps telling them to try these, so they do. They’re sweet and spicy and Lance  _ loves _ them and Keith thinks they’re alright, but kinda weird. 

“Hunk would love to get the recipe from them,” Lance sighs, face falling. 

Keith nudges his shoulder, he hopes the contact is comforting. “We’re gonna see him soon– and Pidge and Shiro and Allura and Coran.”

“Those are your friends?” Cruyh asks. Lance has told her all about his siblings back home, but they haven’t spoken much about the other members of Team Voltron. Trust issues. 

Lance nods. He thinks it’s only fair they tell her about Voltron– she’s imparted the cultural knowledge leftover from a nearly-extinct civilization, they can at least tell her about their friends. 

And they spend the whole two hours telling her about Hunk, Pidge, Shiro, Coran, Allura, their Lions, and the castleship they call home. 

Keith thinks, idly, not really putting much weight behind it, that if Cruyh wanted to betray them, they just gave her a goldmine of information to exchange for her brother’s release. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :DDDDD so,,,, how do u like my lovely alien OCs? i, personally, would Die for Cruyh. Or Twanqhim (even tho we never see Twanqhim again umu)   
> we really do be getting to zarkons ship doe............. whatchu think is up next??
> 
> wanna know more updates? follow me on tumblr [bmgh-writing] or tiktok [bmgh.writing]
> 
> and, as always,  
> Scream at me in the comments, nothing brings me more joy!!! :DDDDDDD


	6. Execution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW towards the end for standard blood/gore and a tiny bit more dissociation w the hands 
> 
> if these r triggers for u, stop reading after the bot room is mentioned and u can pick back up when the text is all single lines right at the very end <3

The door sings a wheezy little tune and clicks itself unlocked. Keith and Lance’s hands are rebound in front of them, blindfolded. Cruyh double checks that their bayards, in their smaller, depowered form, are fastly secured to their backs– they look like an armor decal, or maybe a small propulsor for zero-gravity navigation. Their helmets are in the ship still– and Keith and Lance know exactly where to find them.

“When it happens, you’ll know,” Cruyh tells them, “It’ll be chaos, so don’t bother looking for me, just go straight to the ship, get your helmets, and steal an escape pod– those will be docked next to the maintenance room. They have a longer range on their communicators, so they should be able to reach your friends. I don’t know how fast the Galra will reorganize though, so leave as fast as you can.”

Keith doesn’t hold back. He asks, “What about you? And Canthom?”

A sick smile warps Cruyh’s sideways crocodile teeth. “I’ll take care of me and Canthom. You two take care of each other.” She looks sad.

She leads them like livestock the same route as before, through what must be the Galra immigrant slums. Three steps. Doorway. Twenty-four steps. Left turn. Down a flight of stairs. Seventeen steps. Right turn. Doorway. Five-hundred-eighty steps. Right turn. Up two flights of stairs. It’s silent here

An unprecedented right turn that leads them to another seven flights of stairs. By the top step, the roar of a crowd can be heard through the metal walls. It still takes another three-hundred-and-eight steps, and two doorways, to reach the entrance to the Galra Execution Arena. 

This is the very same place where Shiro fought for two years. Where he lost his arm. Keith shivers uncontrollably, and Lance leans into him without a word. Comfort. 

Inside the Arena is deafening. Galra militants, civilians, government officials, and bourgeoisie all screaming for blood. Keith’s blood. Lance’s blood. Later, Allura’s, Hunk’s, Coran’s, Shiro’s, Pidge’s. 

They are paraded in front of Zarkon, Hagar, and Lotor first– but it won’t happen here, Cruyh had said. Cruyh wants it clear that  _ she _ , a kidnapped child from a lost planet, killed Zarkon. If Keith and Lance are right there, everyone will think it was one of them, and the revolution won’t happen because the zealot’s will paint Zarkon and his family as martyr’s, not fallen tyranists.

So they wait. A stiff-spined official removes their blindfolds. Zarkon gives a speech. Lotor gives a speech. Hagar cheers and smiles, but doesn’t give a speech. 

Quietly, privately, Zarkon smiles proud and patriotic and warm, at Cruyh. “I think, with this,” he tells her, “we can arrange for your brother to come home. Maybe we can move you out of the military housing in those disgusting slums.” He puts his hand on her shoulder, “Two favors for two paladins.”

Cruyh is visibly tempted. Keith feels a preemptive sense of betrayal flare up, and he yanks against the restraints. She glances at him coldly with two eyes. The other three stare at Zarkon. “Thank you, sir,” she answers him breathlessly. Optimistically. 

It occurs to Keith with the sudden pain of a freight train to the left temple that Cruyh would be something like 15, in human years. Younger than him. Younger than everyone on Team Voltron, even Pidge. It would be insane if she  _ didn’t _ betray them– with the promise of her brother’s return and an easier life, she has no reason to help them. He yanks on his restraints again, viciously, and is rewarded with the alien equivalent of a cow-prod to the thigh. He yelps, and Lance leans in front of him and says something that  _ sounds _ rude, but he says it in Spanish so Keith can’t be sure. 

The stiff-spined official walks both paladins to the center of the ring like prized cattle at a state fair. People cheer. People boo. People scream for their blood and their heads and they call dibs on their limbs.

Keith is brought forward first. 

Lance screams. 

_ “No– No! Take me first, you can’t have him– you can’t! I’ll go first– Yo primero! Por favor– please– please don’t take him from me, please _ .”

Keith is shoved to his knees, and his head is laid across a metal block. The edge of it scrapes his armor. He’s dizzy and nauseous and he can still hear Lance screaming and he’d do anything if he could make Lance less scared. His throat is static and his mouth sand. He’s shaking. Both him and Lance are crying. He sees his life flash before his eyes and so much of it is dust and loneliness; he swears that if he lives through this he’s going to figure out how to take a bath and figure out how to get Lance in it with him and he doesn’t care if he’s not supposed to want that anymore. 

The whole arena is screaming, but one scream hitches above the rest in an inhuman tremor of pain that cuts out after less than two seconds. 

It had been Hagar. Her lifeless body falls from the raised platform behind the podium where her husband’s body is now dripping blood. Lotor draws a sword, but Cruyh cuts him down before he’s even got it in the air. 

She screams, “ **_The Galra Empire is no more._ ** ” 

The executioner falls to his knees and trembles with the weight of emotions Keith doesn’t care about. The crowd erupts into chaos. Lance sprints to Keith and helps him to his feet. They help each other grab their bayards off their backs and unbind themselves. People are running out of the stands in a frenzy. Lance is still sobbing. Nobody is watching them anymore.

“Keith–” Lance hiccups, and then he decides words aren’t worth it and he yanks Keith in and he kisses him harshly and desperately and tangibly afraid. Keith still hasn’t come back to the ground after nearly having his head removed from his shoulders, but now rational thought feels impossible and he presses into the kiss like he’s not in the middle of a Galra coup in the heart of their biggest ship. Lance pulls back just far enough to stammer, “I-I thought Cruyh betrayed us,  _ mierda _ , I thought you were d- gone–” and Keith kisses him again because he doesn’t have room for anything else in his mind. 

Until their executioner decides to finish the job, Zarkon or no Zarkon, and comes cleaving after them with a weapon that has crossed a sword with an axe– they only survive because Lance heard him coming and blocked with his bayard. Keith spins in place and slices the executioner’s stomach open. 

“We gotta go,” Lance says.

Half the crowd has left the arena, the rest is trying to get out. 

“The Commander–” Keith insists. Cruyh saved them. She had the keys to her brother’s salvation and she saved them anyway. They can’t leave her here. 

“Where would she be?” Lance cries, “Where would they have kept Canthom?”

Keith remembers this. Cruyh told them. “Hagar’s lab. There’s a small set of detention facilities adjacent.” 

They both debate leaving Cruyh here. Getting their helmets and getting out of here. 

But no. That’s not who they are. They run, like idiots, into the fray at the base of the stands and up, past Zarkon’s body, past his family’s bodies, through the archway behind the podium, down the hallway to Hagar’s laboratory. Cruyh’s voice sounds from inside.

“Canthom!?  _ Canthom!? _ ” She yells in her native language until a hoarse voice whispers a response.

They let her have her moment. They give her time to reunite with her brother, and they watch the door for hostiles. 

When she has her brother– who looks truly like a child– safely cradled in her arms, they call out to her.

“Commander–”

“What are you two doing here?” she hisses, “I told you to get to the escape pods!”

“Not without you,” Keith snaps, “You saved our lives. You’re coming with us.”

Lance suddenly wonders, “What about all the people in the slums?”

Cruyh shakes her head, “They know how to get out safely. Every family down there has an ‘out’ plan. That’s why I warned them.”

“What’s your ‘out’ plan?” Lance asks her.

“Short version? Get on one of the smaller ships in the cargo hold with my brother and fly it back to Wanthie. See what’s left. Go from there.”

“Oh. That’s pretty concrete actually.”

“Yeah, it is. I’m not dumb enough to overthrow the Galra Empire without an ‘out’ plan.”

Lance nods, slowly, and then thinks of something– Keith can tell by the look in his eyes– “Alright,” Lance says, “alright, you go. Keith and I have to finish something here.”

“We do?”

“We do. Come on,  _ guapo _ . Let’s finish what she started.”

They leave Cruyh with her brother, and she nods and makes a sprint for the cargo bay to steal a ship. Voltron will be on the lookout for her when they get home, to help her if they can and thank her if they can’t. 

They go up four flights of stairs, down several hallways, Lance has a destination in mind. Keith has no fucking clue where they are.

“What are we doing!?” he cries over the pound of his heartbeat in the deserted hallway.

Lance grins wickedly, “The  _ bots _ , Keith. If we can take out the bots, that’s more than half the Galra fighting force. I saw it on the map in Hagar’s lab, there’s a central control and power supply that keeps them all running. If we destroy this, the bots won’t have any orders to work on, or power to move.”

Keith grins wickedly too. “If nothing else,” he jokes dryly, “we’re making Pidge proud.”

Lance laughs, and they sprint to the Bot Central Control Facility. 

It’s not going to be easy to destroy a machine the size of one of their Lions though. They didn’t exactly bring any dynamite. 

Lance giggles. “Fuck it,” he says, and his bayard blasts into any part of the thing he can reach. Keith can’t do as much with a short-range weapon, but he slices at wires and metal casings and connecting cords. Until there’s not a whole lot left. Maybe it takes too long. Who gives a shit. Half an hour now to save them countless future battles, countless lives. 

Still. Maybe it takes too long.

Because some Galra asshole wearing a fancy military uniform that has clearly never seen battle before barges in, fur wild and eyes wilder, and he raises a blaster that he barely knows how to use and he opens fire. He does almost half as much damage as Lance to the central control. Two bullets also hit Lance. 

Lance doesn’t collapse but he does stumble and sink to the ground. Keith is torn between catching him and catching the Galra asshole who did this. Lance is panting on the ground. Red. Not blue, red. Keith can’t see anything other than red. Red. Red.  _ Red. _

Some part of him is looking around, wondering where he is and, distantly, if he’s going to be okay. The rest of him is tackling and slicing and stabbing, stabbing, stabbing and, probably, screaming. Keith can’t hear the screaming though, so maybe that’s just the blood in his ears. 

The man has been dead since the first slice– it had been across his neck– but he’s a disfigured mess underneath Keith when his consciousness comes back to him and he chokes on the smell of blood. 

“Lance–  _ Lance _ –” he’s screaming for him, but Lance is only a few yards away. Still conscious and everything. Really, it could have been worse. A graze above the hip and a solid, but small hole in the flesh on the back of his thigh. He’s bleeding more from the thigh, which shocks Keith. All the injuries of team Voltron in the past 3 years, the back of the thigh is a new one, and he never thought it would bleed  _ that _ much. Lance is clutching at it with his fingers, trying to stop the bleeding. Keith doesn’t have anything to shove in there or wrap it in. Jesus fucking christ.

Keith reasons to himself that Lance has lived through worse, and Keith has been there to see it. This won’t kill him. It can’t. It can’t. 

“Come on, buddy,” Keith murmurs, lifting Lance by one arm. He wants to carry him, but the only way to do that would chafe the edge of his armor against the injury with every step. So he’ll just pull him along like this, one arm propped above his shoulders, trying to keep him off the ground as much as possible. 

Fuck if this isn’t slow though. 

He stops at a door– when he opens it, it looks like living quarters, or something. He cuts the sheets on the bed with his bayard and balls up a few to press into the dripping red, fleshy wounds, and a few more strips to wrap it all up. 

“Thanks,  _ guapo _ ,” Lance breathes. His face is sweating and pale. He’s not shaking yet. That’s probably good. Maybe it’s bad. Who fucking knows Keith is barely 20 years old– he’s not a fucking doctor! “Hey, Keith?” Lance’s voice is uneven. Wheels on cracked pavement kinda uneven. 

“Yeah?” Somehow, Keith’s voice is shaking more. 

“I’m scared. I can’t– I c-can’t– Keith– my  _ manos _ –  _ no puedo ver mis manos _ –”

“Hey– hey, Lance. Buddy? Lance?” There’s that far away look in Lance’s eyes, and Keith has way too hard of a time getting his attention. “Lance, look at me.  _ Lance, _ come on. We need to get out of here. Lance, some Galra nationalist is  _ going _ to kill us if he finds us. We can’t stay here.”

“Keith,” Lance says, and his hands grip Keith at the elbows. And then Lance sees the red tint to his fingers from trying to force the blood into its normal arterial pathways, and he recoils into himself and he  _ screams _ . Long. Wordless. 

“Lance,  _ please _ –” Keith cries, “ _ Please _ , buddy. Just let me get you to a ship or a pod or  _ whatever _ and then you can freak out all you want there– just let me get you home,  _ I promised to get you home! _ ”

Surprised, like he’s been listening all along, and not screaming, Lance blinks, and he cries. “I remember,” he whispers. “I remember the Room and our Cell and I remember what Ghennan tried to do to me– what Dad did to Veronica– and there was nobody–  _ solo tú _ – Keith, please, I want to go home–”

“Alright, yeah. Yeah, we can go home. We’re going home right now.”

Keith scoops Lance off the ground, now that there’s a thick wad of fabric protecting the wound. It’s not any easier than before, but it’s a lot faster without his feet dragging on the ground. 

They pass four people in between that room with the sheets and the tiny hangar with the ship containing their helmets, all in various stages of panic, two of them looking like they got trampled, one with three kids in tow. Nobody even looks twice at them, even though they stick out like sore thumbs against the dull gray metal walls and inky purple lighting. 

After retrieving their helmets, they find there’s no pods left in the evac wing. Or transport. Or cargo. Looks like everyone ditched this shithole the moment the cards were down. Keith hopes there’s still some pods in maintenance, where Cruyh said to look. He doesn’t want to be stuck here. He doesn’t know if he’ll  _ survive _ being stuck here.

But when they get to storage, only one pod out of ten is missing. Keith doesn’t hesitate to throw himself and Lance into one of the nine remaining and hit the big, red ‘Eject’ button. They rocket away and away and away until Zarkon’s starcruiser fleet is entirely out of view. 

Before anything else, Keith checks on Lance. He’s breathing. The blood is clotting. He’s conscious, and he’s focussing hard on the cosmos outside the little window at the front of the craft. Good. Good– thank fuck.

“Lance, are you alright?”

Uncertainly, Lance nods. He tries to laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,  _ guapo _ . Thanks to you.”

Keith tries to return the laugh– to make Lance feel better if nothing else. “Ever gonna tell me what that means?”

And it works! Lance laughs real, loud, bright. He laughs so hard it jostles the sheets pressed to his side and he winces. “It means you’re pretty, Keith.”

“Sure– yeah, alright,” Keith chuckles, “You’ve just been calling me pretty for months.”

Lance raises his eyebrows pointedly. It’s hard to do– he hurts so bad he just wants to clench his teeth and cry, but he raises his eyebrows anyway and it gets the point across. Keith blushes  _ violently _ . 

It’s cute, but Lance is still in a crazy amount of pain. “Will you get on comms and try to find Voltron, please?” he asks, trying to stay smiling, “I need a healing pod.”

“Shit– shit, yeah. Yeah. Yep. On it.”

On the comms, Keith taps out Voltron’s secret code– which is just the tune of the chorus of Katy Perry’s ‘Hot ‘n Cold,’ on every frequency he can get close enough to send it on. He expects to wait hours– he doesn’t think Lance has hours, but he’s thinking  _ the chances that Pidge or Hunk is scanning for a signal at these frequencies at this very second– _ but the response takes minutes. The other half of the chorus of ‘Hot ‘n Cold.’

Immediately, Keith sends their coordinates.

Pidge says that’s, like,  _ right _ next to Zarkon’s main ship. 

Keith says he knows, they were just there. 

Pidge says everyone is looking at comms with her now.

Pidge says holy shit how are they alive.

Keith says it’s because Zarkon is dead. 

Pidge says how the actual  _ fuck _ did they pull that off.

Pidge says Shiro asks if everyone is okay.

Keith says they’re kinda ok, but Lance is gonna need a healing pod as fast as possible. 

Keith says they didn’t kill Zarkon, they made a friend who killed Zarkon.

Pidge says Hunk asks what exactly kind of damage they’re talking about here.

Pidge says Coran asks if they’re going to be meeting this friend.

Keith says Lance has been shot, but he’s not, like, gonna die yet.

Keith says no, she went home with her brother, but please don’t shoot at any Galra cargo ships in the near future, unless the cargo ships shoot first.

Pidge says they have to cut comms to jump.

Keith says ok that’s fine just hurry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :DDD  
> Keith: call an ambulance, call an ambulance!!  
> Cruyh: but not for him B) *ends the galran empire*
> 
> they lived!! :D what am i gonna do w two more chapters?? fuck around and find out next Monday bb <3333333 
> 
> want more updates? find me on tumblr [bmgh-writing] or tiktok [bmgh.writing]
> 
> and, as always,  
> Scream at me in the comments, nothing brings me more joy! :DDD


	7. Healthy, Safe Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter a little slower to Relax before the last one :D <333

“How are we holding up, Lance?”

Lance smiles, and it feels too soft to be a response to the tone of voice Keith asked with. “You’ve seen me live through worse,” he says with a flat laugh. 

Keith sits on the bench next to Lance, who is still clutching one hand at his waist and one behind his left leg. “Yeah, but that shit still hurts.” He knows because he has also been shot with those fucking blasters– every member of Team Voltron has (besides Coran, through near-misses and luck). 

Lance shrugs. “Not as bad as it could have been. It always feels like the worst pain in the world for half a second, but then it’s just throbbing. Painful as  _ fuck _ ,” he hisses, “but not, like, overwhelming.”

Those blasters get most of their damage from the fact that they don’t need to reload or anything– except the big ones and the sniper rifles which take a second to charge a shot, and then release it with an impact wound big enough that a healing pod almost wasn’t enough to save Allura that one time. She lived because Coran is better with Altean medicine than any ex-political advisor should have to be. 

With no warning or context, Lance grins. He giggles. “We’re going  _ home _ ,” he whispers. “Keith, we get to go  _ home _ !”

Keith smiles too, but before he can bring himself to laugh Lance is pulling him in with both hands for a deeper kiss than they’d had time for in the Arena. They’re both smiling, and Keith is crying, and Lance is laughing, and it’s a hot mess, but that’s them, right now, and Healthy is waiting at home with safety, and this is as close to it as they’re going to get until they’re on board the castleship and they’ve held their friends, their comrades, in their arms and felt their heartbeats and heard their voices. 

The Yellow Lion, the biggest, picks up their little craft in her maw and escorts it back to the hangar in the castleship. For Lance and Keith both, the first sense of home is their own Lion’s protective aura washing over them, hovering anxiously for a few seconds, like a mother, before assessing their relative safety and showering them in gratitude for coming home safely, for taking care of each other. 

The next sense of home is the sound of Pidge rambling to everyone else, and Allura responding in her high-pitched worry-voice, and Coran saying something with authoritative sureness, and Shiro quieting everyone as Yellow lets Hunk out, and his bass voice comes close to the entrance and finagles the right wires to get the escape pod’s door– locked from the outside to ensure a safe, secure flight– to slide open with a puff of cold air. 

“You’re alive!” Hunk screams, melodramatically, intentionally.

Intentionally because it gets Lance to reply, “‘Course I am, I’ve had this guy looking out for me,” which feels like a gross hyperbole of Keith’s significance here, to Keith, but Lance winks at him and asks Hunk, “Hey, Hunk, buddy, can you lift me out of here? They got me in the leg.”

“We’ve got a pod all ready for you!” Pidge calls from out on the main deck of the hangar. “Two of them!”

Clambering out after Hunk, who runs off down the hall towards med bay with Lance in his arms, Keith asks, “Two?”

“We figured you wouldn’t tell us even if you were injured,” Shiro says warmly. “Are you?” He doesn’t wait for Keith to answer. Rakes his graze over Keith from head to toe critically. Spins him around a few times, looks him over again, spins him around some more, until Keith smiles and shoves him away and insists he’s fine. Then Shiro pulls him into a tight hug. “You came home,” he whispers. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” Keith manages to grumble, fondly. 

Allura joins the group-hug, and Pidge, and Coran. They’re all saying various iterations of  _ I’m so happy you’re here _ and  _ Don’t take so long next time _ and  _ You’re safe now, that’s what matters _ . 

Keith cries again. Nobody mentions it. After he’s done crying, they chase Hunk and Lance down the hall. Lance is telling Hunk that he and Keith are gonna tell everyone about their new friend, the Commander, when he’s out of the pod. Hunk asks isn’t she the scary lady with the three arms who kidnapped them in the first place. Lance says that is a minor detail, but yes, that’s her, and she was also the one to kill Zarkon and save their lives. Hunk starts to ask something else but Lance interrupts him, “First of all, Hunk, I’m not spoiling any more of the story for you, and secondly, I am in  _ a lot _ of pain and would like to be unconscious as quickly as possible, please.”

“Oh, shit, my bad buddy, let’s get you in there–”

“Wait! Wait, hang on– Keith, com’ere.”

Keith approaches the med bay cot, on which Lance has been changed into the standard white healing pod uniform, and Lance kisses him again. Keith goes bright red, and then Lance says he’s ready for the pod. “See everyone in, like, a few hours or something,” and then the pod doors slide shut and everyone immediately pivots from seeing Lance off into dreamland to staring directly at Keith’s carnation-pink face. 

“When did you have  _ time _ for that?” Pidge asks, vaguely awestruck and vaguely horrified. 

Coran whirls on Pidge and says, “Don’t you try to shimmy your way out of this, Pidge– a deal is a deal.”

“Fine,” she groans, “I’ll fix your buggy mp3–”

“Audiographer,” Coran corrects her.

“I’ll fix your  _ audiographer _ for you.”

Allura sidles up to Keith while they bicker. “They had a bet on whether you would start your relationship during a mission or in your freetime,” she explains. 

Keith says he’s not saying any of this twice, and Lance  _ will _ kill him if he tells the story without him, so he’s going to take a shower and he’s not answering any of these questions until he has backup. Everyone clings a bit, but leaves him be when Hunk blessedly distracts them into helping him do something for whichever meal is next– it might be dinner but it also might be lunch. Who knows. Keith’s circadian rhythm is all kinds of shot.

They go to the kitchen. Keith goes to his room. He can tell Pidge was sleeping in his bed because his sheets are still messy, and he can tell Hunk cleaned the place up at some point because his clothes are folded on the dressed and his boots are standing at attention next to it, and he can tell Allura sat in here because one of her books is on his nightstand and he can tell Coran stood in the doorway because it’s wide open and he can tell Shiro came in here to cry where nobody was looking because that’s his brother and he knows him. They’ve all been prisoners of war at some point, so everyone is used to coming back to a different room than the one they left. Having your friends stuck behind enemy lines never gets easier. Everyone takes comfort in whatever they can. 

He peels off his suit and leaves it on the floor. It will need to be washed. Better yet, disinfected. He hasn’t taken it off since he was first kidnapped. That was– he does the math, counting the little scars he left to mark the time on his arm and adding the days they spent outside of captivity– twenty-nine days. A month ago. Almost a whole month. That’s the second-longest time anyone on Team Voltron has spent as a prisoner of war. One day less than when Hunk and Allura were captured on a diplomatic mission. 

He sits in the shower and cries. Heaving sobs. His whole body aches with the weight of them. Head heavy. Throat raw. Fuck,  _ everything _ feels raw, and Keith scrubs off a month of sweat and grime and flecks of blood–  _ Lance’s blood _ – and he washes his hair three times before the soap actually sudses. He’s tempted to cut it all off and feel the hum of the castleship's oxygen-cycling vents on his neck again, but decides on a ponytail instead.

An hour later he emerges, skin red from scrubbing, hair a little thinner from how hard he pressed and pulled at his scalp trying to physically wash off the sensations of guilt and fear. 

Apparently, that next meal was dinner, because the lights have dimmed to their night-time setting in his room. He gets dressed in the clothes Hunk left folded on his dresser, but leaves the boots where they are. 

It’s just Keith, stingingly clean, in the cool, damp,  _ dark _ of his room.

He almost vomits. 

No time for self-justification or placations or rationalizing or slowing down or even thinking it through. Keith is already sprinting down the hallway towards his friends. Terrified tears are building in his throat and he skids to a halt in the kitchen to the surprise of the rest of his team (except Lance, who is still in cryosleep). 

They don’t ask. 

Because you don’t ask. 

You can’t ask. 

Shiro pulls him in for another hug, and nobody mentions it.

Keith stays glued to somebody’s side– ( _ anybody, anybody, please just don’t leave me alone again) _ – while they bake what Hunk asserts  _ will _ be a cake. Shiro is very doubtful that the ingredients they have put in the mixer will ever amount to anything like a cake. Pidge says oh, trust me, they do. Coran asks if the cake can be purple. Hunk says sure, if you can find some food dye. Allura says she’ll check their stock of rare ingredients. There’s no purple food dye, but she does find allegedly-edible glitter. Everyone agrees that allegedly-edible glitter is perfect. 

The cake can’t be baked like normal because Altean kitchens do not have ovens. They have griddles, and Hunk– in a stress-induced combination of engineering and baking– has cannibalized several of them and some scrap metal and wiring to create something  _ similar _ to an oven. This contraption was not around when Keith was last on the castleship, and Hunk says this will be the second time he has used it. Allura and Pidge pray for the cake. 

Keith asks after the frosting, from where he is currently attached to Hunk’s arm. Hunk pulls a bag of it out of the cold food storage that he says Coran helped him make some earlier, while Keith was showering. The frosting, apparently, has to be chilled for a while, so they made it before the cake. 

It all feels so– well, not quite normal. About six degrees above normal. Same conversations, just a little louder, faster, with more feeling. Same people, just smiling a little wider, bouncing a little more, touching effortlessly, freely. Nobody mentions any of the four times Keith cries in between when they put the cake in the sort-of-oven and when they start to migrate back towards med bay. 

Once they’re all in med bay, Keith finds he has to sit down pretty quick. He hasn’t done much other than sleep and be afraid for the past month. His stamina is as shot as his circadian rhythm. Keith wants to curse his body. Allura interrupts with an invite for everyone to play an Altean card game until Lance wakes up.

She doesn’t get into more than three of the rules before everyone complains that it’s way too complicated. She says it’s not  _ that _ bad. Shiro assures her that it really is that bad. Coran suggests a different card game with a shorter name, and Allura claps her hands excitedly and begins to explain that instead. Everyone says this game sounds much easier. Hunk says, “Isn’t that just like tarot cards?”

“Like whatnow? Pidge asks.

“Tarot cards,” Hunk repeats, “ya know. Fortune-telling cards. My mom was really into them.”

“Which mom?” Keith asks, although he supposes it doesn’t especially matter which mom, he still wants to know. “Your mom who was really tall with a dog allergy or your mom who wore the hoop skirt to parent teacher conferences?” Hunk has talked at length about both of his moms– everyone has told each other so much about their own families. Keith feels like he can see them in his mind’s eye. It makes him envious, kinda, but mostly it makes him warm inside. Comfort. There are people out there like Hunk’s moms, and Shiro’s fiancé Adam, and Pidge’s mom and brother and dad, and Lance’s siblings. 

“Maila. My mom with the hoop skirt– how do you even remember that?”

Keith shrugs, “It’s only been a month. I’m not senile.”

Hunk shakes his head, rephrases, “No, I mean I only mentioned that, like, once, dude–  _ I _ barely remember when she wore the hoop skirt to parent-teacher conferences.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees, “I don’t even remember that conversation.”

The pod beeps in warning and hisses open behind them, and it’s a race to see who’s gonna catch Lance. It’s always a race to see who can catch whoever’s falling out of the healing pod first. A kind of game. Lighthearted because no matter who catches them, at least they were caught. There’s still some residual guilt from when Lance took shrapnel to the back for Coran, when they were new at this whole team-thing. This whole family-thing. 

This time, Keith wins. Allura is, by all accounts, faster than him, especially since his muscles have weakened in captivity, and it’s likely she let him win. Knows Keith needs this. Either way, Keith catches Lance, and Lance smiles at him and calls him  _ guapo _ again, and Keith goes red again.

“Oh so he finally told you what it means,” Hunk deduces, smirking.

Pidge throws her hands up. “I still don’t know when you had time to commit to a relationship while being held as prisoners of war in a Galra ship, befriending the captain, killing Zarkon, and freeing yourselves in the process.”

So they tell them what happened. The outline. Vague details when necessary. Nobody needs to know exactly how many times Keith had to hold Lance’s hands far from his body so he wouldn’t hurt himself. How many times he came back shivering from cold. How many times he sobbed Veronica’s name. They gloss over all that. Only the good parts. Cruyh saved them. She offered an alliance. They accepted. They arrived at Zarkon’s main ship. They met, briefly and barely, a community of refugees near the trash chutes. Cruyh killed Zarkon, Hagar, and Lotor. She escaped with her brother. Lance and Keith destroyed the bots’ Central Control. Lance got shot. They escaped. They called Voltron to come pick them up. 

Pidge raises her hand at the end. Everyone rolls their eyes and she asks, “Okay, but when did you have time to start dating in all that bullshit?”

Keith flares pink, but Lance only blushes a little. They stumble over an answer until Lance blurts, “Uh, well, you know, we almost, like,  _ died _ –”

“But we do that all the time,” Shiro probes, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“What do you want me to say?” Keith snaps weakly, “This time was–… I dunno,  _ different _ .”

And it was. Everyone remembers when they had been trapped together on that ship. Lance had been a sadist’s favorite doll to play with, and things like that force everyone to realize how easily they could  _ lose someone _ . In this case, Lance. It pushed Lance and Keith over the edge. They couldn’t hide it anymore. 

“Fine,” Pidge sighs, “I still don’t get it, but  _ fine _ . Can we eat now?”

“Oh  _ shit,” _ Hunk screeches, “I forgot to set a timer!” All of Team Voltron races to the kitchen and find that the oven had never actually been turned on. “Whoops,” Hunk says sheepishly, “forgot to plug it in.”

Shiro and Pidge groan. Allura whines, “I was really looking forward to the cake.”

Lance says, “There’s gonna be  _ cake!? _ ”

Team Voltron sits at the dining table with bowls of food goo to wait for the cake, while Hunk plugs it in and sets a timer. 

“I always feel like I should be  _ energized _ after I step out of the healing pod,” Lance grumbles, “but every damn time I’m exhausted.”

Coran shrugs, “Well, those pods only speed up your natural healing factor. Your body is still the thing doing the healing, and that takes energy!”

“Yeah, but as it is I dunno if I’m gonna be able to stay awake until the cake is done,” Lance complains. He drapes himself dramatically over Keith, who’s in the chair next to him– he tests his weight first, asking Keith with his eyes if what he’s doing is okay. Keith giggles and leans right back into it. He feels giddy. Everyone is safe. They’re all home and they’re all safe and Healthy is right here where they thought it would be waiting. He brought Lance home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lasjkdfhkads we almost done bbs!!!!! (sorry i missed last week finals is a bitch)
> 
> as always, find me on my tiktok [bmgh.writing] or my tumblr [bmgh-writing] <3333
> 
> and, as always,  
> Scream at me in the comments, nothing brings me more joy!!! :DDDDDD


	8. Valediction

Over cake, when it’s finally done, Allura raises a good question: “So, if Zarkon and his whole family are dead, is it– I mean… is it over?” She glances around the table. It’s the first time in months that she’s seemed so young. 

Pidge straightens her glasses. “I mean, we have to wait to see how the Galra Empire restructures itself–”

“If it restructures at all,” Keith interjects, “it was crazy in there.”

Coran adds, “And we still have many planets to liberate– who might not realize Zarkon is gone yet–”

Lance continues, “But the bots are all scrap metal now. That was the main tool of Galra oppression–”

“The people can probably overrun the few Galra figureheads that were giving the bots orders,” Shiro says excitedly. 

“We should still send out some kind of message,” Hunk insists. Everyone is quick to agree, and to assure each other, themselves, everyone, that they would still feel compelled to check in on at least a few planets. Hunk’s eyes tear up, “But we can– I mean, we  _ could _ –”

“We could go home,” Lance breathes. 

They can go home.

It feels a little like cheating. 

They make a gameplan. Pidge and Coran have charted a series of planets that are centrally located in relation to other intelligent-life planets and have a history of Galra oppression or cooperation. There’s 97 of them. They’ll visit each of those planets, tell them the news, broadcast the news from that planet, and leave that broadcast playing for future space explorers who they happen to miss. After that, they’re going home. 

They hardly know how.

For a minute, there’s a debate on whether they shouldn’t stick around to solve other, smaller matters for different planets, as needed. Shiro, Keith, and Allura want to continue to patrol space for potential future threats. Lance and Pidge think that’s a slippery slope to Voltron becoming its own kind of colonizing force. Hunk and Coran have leanings, but mostly they just don’t want infighting. It lasts something like a week, and it never becomes divisive. Maybe it would if Lance and Keith weren’t literally sitting in each other’s laps while they debated it, but they are and the unintentional effect of this is everyone else laughing both with and at them. If Lance and Keith aren’t at each other’s throats, nobody else needs to be either. Pidge and Shiro almost go to blows once, but Hunk steps in and makes them hug it out before allowing them to talk more peacefully.

They decide against a Voltron police force. Space is big, and they are small, and it would be impossible for them to try to solve every problem and it’s laughable to think that they’d make the right decision every time. If there’s something like the Galra Empire again? That’s where Voltron will step in. Not civil wars on planets where Voltron has no business being. 

97 planets and then they go home. 

On planet 3 Shiro finds Keith passed out on the training deck. After waking him up and making him eat something, drink some water, he asks what the hell had happened. Keith says he was just trying to work on his stamina. He says his body doesn’t feel the same since he got back. He says he can’t even get past level 8. Shiro says his body needs time to recover. He says to take it slow. Keith says he should just be able to do it. 

On planet 7 Lance finds Keith passed out on the training deck. He panics and shakes him awake and asks if he’s dying. Keith says he’s not, thanks for the vote of confidence. Lance says what happened. Keith says he didn’t pass out this time, just fell asleep– Lance says what the fuck do you mean this time. Keith says he just fell asleep, don’t worry about it. Lance says Keith is a terrible liar, and demands a real answer. Keith says he turned the simulator off to go to bed and the room was dark and he was alone and it freaked him out so bad he tripped and then he was too scared to stand up so he just laid there until he fell asleep. Lance kisses his forehead and leads him back to his room and holds him close while he falls asleep. Keith counts their combined scars until he falls asleep too.

On planet 15 Pidge finds Lance staring at a wall in the common room. Eyes distant. He doesn’t even hear her come in. She makes a joke and he doesn’t so much as glance at her. She asks if he’s pissed about something. He doesn’t move. She gets in his face and he screams and begins babbling in Spanish, and she doesn’t understand a word. Allura and Keith come in, drawn by the scream, and Keith calms Lance down by holding his face and saying things about people Pidge and Allura– and even Shiro, who joins them a few seconds later– don’t know. Lance blinks back to himself. He says he doesn’t know how he got to the common room. Keith makes a joke about something, and everyone laughs and everyone is forcing it.

On planet 21 Allura and Hunk are talking about how they don’t know if any of them will be able to resume their lives as they were. Or if they could possibly know how to build new ones. Three years is an inaccurate estimate of Team Voltron’s activity because they hadn’t been keeping track for the first few months. They had thought they’d be going home any day. Hunk starts to cry first. He says his mom– the tall one with the dog allergy, Juno– was probably still putting up missing posters for him, and it was probably driving his other mom– the one who wore the hoop-skirt, Maila– nuts. They’d always differed on when to drop things. 

On planet 32 Keith wakes up before Lance in the bed they sometimes share, when they need it and when they want it. He tucks the blankets tighter around Lance because he knows how cold it feels when someone gets up first and he doesn’t want it to wake Lance up. He goes pee. He comes back and Lance is thrashing in the covers until they’re almost tied around his chest– he’s panting, wide-eyes and a hoarse throat. He’s having an episode. Keith pulls the blanket away. Calls out, Lance. Lance, buddy, you’re safe. It wasn’t the restraints, just the blankets. It’s alright. Lance– 

On planet 40 they have a small intervention. Shiro found Keith in the middle of another panic attack that he still refuses to call a panic attack because there’s no psychiatrist on board to diagnose it. As softly, efficiently, non-threateningly as possible, they go through his triggers. Darkness. Places with no clear, open exits. Being alone. Bots. Everyone brainstorms, helpfully, casually, unobtrusively, ways to help Keith avoid these things. They decide to leave all the hallway and main area lights on indefinitely. They’ll dim slightly, and change to warmer colors, when the nighttime settings kick in, but that’s something they can change. Another thing, everyone agrees to leave doors open. It’s a small thing, and they’ll definitely accidentally close them sometimes, but the door to places like the kitchen and the training room never really need to be closed anyway. Keith is too embarrassed to let anyone get headway into the idea of taking turns spending more time with Keith, but he can’t say anything if Hunk suggests everyone spend more time together in the common room in general. And everyone says again and again that he’s never bothering them if he wants to just sit with them, or ask them to go somewhere in the ship with him. Bots… nobody can really do much about, but on the bright side the castleship doesn’t really use bots. 

On planet 49 Shiro and Lance agree that  _ everyone  _ on Team Voltron is going to need some serious therapy, like, real, actual,  _ psychologist _ therapy. Lance laughs and wonders aloud if anyone on Earth will believe what they’ve been through. Shiro says he’s not even sure Adam will believe him. Lance says he’s still sorry they accidentally kidnapped him that night, three years ago. He says Shiro already did the whole space-trauma thing once, he should have been able to go home to Adam. Shiro says he doesn’t blame him. He says he can’t wait to see Adam again– introduce him to everyone. Lance giggles and says Shiro makes it sound like one of those shitty Hallmark movies where they take them home to meet the parents, or whatever. Shiro laughs, but both of them know it was hardly a joke. 

On planet 58, Allura and Coran wonder if there’s a place for them on Earth. Pidge assures them there’s literally nobody here who’s family wouldn’t adopt Allura and Coran as unconventional cousins or something in a heartbeat. 

Planet 63 fires a cautious warning shot across the side of the castleship. It was unexpected. It knocks Team Voltron’s power out for a while. Everyone except Coran and Shiro, who are the ones delivering the message this time, is in the common room doing things separately, but next to each other. When the lights cut out everyone makes small, unpanicked remarks of surprise, and Allura runs up to the bridge to restore power and tell Coran and Shiro to hurry up and get down there. After something like ten minutes of darkness, Keith feels the panic creep into his bones, feels his whole body seize into tension. His hands reach out in the dark. One finds Lance, reading a children’s book in Altean, the other finds Pidge, tinkering with something and leaning against Hunk, napping. All three of them lean in closer to Keith. He feels safe. He’s home. 

On planet 76 the locals try to kill the messengers, Lance and Hunk in this case, it doesn’t go well– I mean, the  _ locals _ think it went great since they got the weird, giant, magical, sentient space cats to leave their sovereign land, but both Lance and Hunk come back soaked in blood from superficial wounds that look much worse than they are. Shiro cracks first, unexpectedly. Breaks into tears when Lance and Hunk fall out of their pods (Keith and Coran won the race this time, although Pidge complained that she never wins because she’s got the shortest legs). Shiro doesn’t mean to say it aloud, but he asks how many scars are they going to have to have before they’re allowed to go home. He asks the stars if it’s a price. Allura tells him he’s not making much sense. Shiro looks at her and regains his composure as quickly as he’d lost it. But it’s too late, Lance and Pidge are already crying too, and it spreads like a disease. They all sit there and cry for the better part of an hour, holding onto each other for dear life and just sobbing. When they’re done, they feel lighter than they have in years.

On planet 88 it starts to set in that they’re almost done. It hits Keith like a bullet and he starts crying for no reason. They’ve been crying together a lot since planet 76, and almost never with a reason. Hunk stress-bakes a batch of alien pastries, Coran starts crying. Pidge installs a new game to play on their weird little console, Shiro starts crying. Allura makes them flower crowns from a field on planet 80, Lance starts crying. They just cry at nothing now, and nobody mentions it except to joke. Uneven, tear-scraped voices. Sometimes the whole team breaks down where they are, training deck, eating dinner, wherever. Sometimes it’s just one person, and everyone still stays with them and lets them have that. So nobody makes fun of Keith when he gets back to the castleship– it had been him and Hunk delivering the message this time– and just sits down in the hangar and cries. Allura and Lance cry too. Everyone else stays with them and lets them have that. Nobody mentions it, except to joke.

On planet 93 – four from the end– Keith and Lance fall asleep clutching each other so tight their knuckles are white and Keith bruises a little. In the morning, Lance says he’s scared to go home. Keith says he doesn’t have a home to go back to, so he can bring Lance home. Stay with him, if that’s what Lance wants. Lance says he’s never wanted anything more. Lance says Keith will love Veronica– she was a hairdresser when he left, and he hopes she’s still doing that because she was  _ good _ at it. He jokes that she could even give Keith a trim– but he doesn’t call it a mullet anymore. Keith’s hair is braided now– Lance hasn’t called it a mullet in almost a year. Keith asks Lance to tell him about the rest of his siblings. Marco was great at soccer before– he’s the goalie, and his team loses all the time because the defense doesn’t know what they’re doing and they throw it all on Marco, which pisses Lance off because Marco gets so upset when they lose by two points, even though he blocked something like thirty shots. Luis is more into art, and Lance admits he’s not great at it yet, but he was so little when Lance last saw him– Luis and Lance are eight years apart, which makes him ten by now. That means Marco is thirteen. And Veronica is twenty-two. Lance wonders if she still shaves those cool patterns into her hair. That was her favorite– she was really good at stars. Keith doesn’t ask about Lance’s parents that morning because everyone has known for a while that Lance’s mom died when he was eleven and he doesn’t like to talk about his dad. This morning Lance whispers, maybe to Keith, maybe to the hallway light that’s still turned on outside their door, that he hopes his dad is still in prison by the time he gets home. 

On planet 97, the last one, they linger. This planet has nothing for them. The inhabitants are war-eyed and tired from it. This planet had been subjugated for thousands of years. There’s nobody alive who even remembers someone who was alive when they were free. A manufacturing colony, making parts for the bots that– about 96 days ago– stopped functioning. Purposeless. They take the news of their freedom with shy hands that shake as much from overburden as anxiety. They say thank you, but the words ring confused– nobody here is even sure what freedom looks like. How does one act at the end of an endless war? The galra haven’t resurfaced in these 97 days– there hasn’t even been Galra ships, just rumors from wandering space-traders about how all the elites and bigwigs and bourgeois killed each other trying to grab authority in the power-vacuum left by Zarkon’s death. The people on this planet– they don’t remember the name of their own planet anymore– don’t know any of this. They just ask, the oldest of them, with hands like sandpaper, if it’s really over. The whole team came to the surface this time– for the last one– and Allura answers, yes, it’s really over. The elder cries, and Voltron cries with them, and the whole lost culture of planet 97 shocks with it. This is what they have to rebuild with. A planet they don’t remember the name of, torn up with the industrial scars of war, and great, heaving sobs that wrack their frames as they fall to the ground where they had stood firm to receive Voltron. But even when the tears are done, Team Voltron lingers. This planet offers them nothing because it has nothing to offer, but they can’t find the will to get in their Lions and go home. 

Shouldn’t they want to go home?

Eventually, they have to. They say goodbye and they say good luck and they get in their Lions and Allura asks them what galaxy their planet is in.

Just at the edge of Earth’s solar system– which the Altean map has labeled as “Terra”– Team Voltron eats dinner together one more time. A little over three years together, and this will likely be the last time they share dinner. Nobody cries tonight– even though that’s a near thing for Coran and Hunk. Pidge says she won’t miss the food goo, but she will miss Hunk’s cooking. Hunk says he’s going to miss playing video games with everyone, even if Coran always cheats. Coran says he’s going to miss dinners like this, with everyone gathered together like a family. Allura says she’s going to miss helping the paladins train, and everyone bullies her into agreeing that her training was usually a fucking  _ nightmare _ , especially that first year. Shiro says he’s really going to miss training with everyone, despite the fucking  _ nightmare _ s sometimes. Lance says he’s going to miss hanging out in the common room, doing facemasks with random alien shit and forcing them on everyone else. Keith says he’s going to miss everyone. Keith doesn’t say that the last place he wants to go is Earth, where the only thing waiting for him is a dusty shack. Everyone still hears him, and the conversation rapidly turns to what they’re gonna do on Earth– everyone clawing for Keith’s hand (and, of course, Allura’s and Coran’s) to drag him with them to meet their families. 

Lance wins Keith. Pidge wins Coran. Hunk wins Allura. Shiro says he and Adam probably have to have a long talk before he meets anybody anyways– he’s got a lot more lost time to make up for, after all, and fiancés are a little different than parents or siblings. They also decide to bring communicators with them– their cell phones were left at the garrison with everything else they didn’t think they’d need for a midnight stargazing trip (or, in Keith’s case, he hadn’t had a cell phone in at least a year, since he couldn’t afford the phone bill and didn’t have anyone worth contacting). With their communicators, they can get in contact once they’ve said hi to their families. Because everyone is adamant that their families  _ have  _ to meet. And  _ everyone  _ has to meet Allura and Coran. 

Plans come about for a grandiose party– Lance and Hunk both offer to host– where Allura, Coran, Keith, Shiro and Adam, Pidge and her mom, Hunk and his moms Maila and Juno, and Lance and Veronica and Luis and Marco all come together and there’s lots of Earth foods for Allura and Coran to try and everyone else to remember and everyone is happy and everything is okay. 

After dinner they cry together one more time. Hugging. A chorus of broken records,  _ we did it– we can go home _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapterrr <3333333  
> thank u all for being so patient with me this whole time!!! i love every single reader, kudo-giver, and commenter <333333 
> 
> catch me either this Friday or next Monday starting my next fic-- south park creek fic spinoff of another fic i read (this ones gonna be HEFTY, im 60k words written so far and only half done lmao)
> 
> as always, u can find me on tumblr [bmgh-writing] or tiktok [bmgh.writing] for more updates and daily fanfiction quotes!! <3
> 
> and, signing off,  
> Scream at me in the comments, nothing brings me more joy!! :DDDDDDDD

**Author's Note:**

> hey yall just wanna preface this by saying this is the last voltron fic i'll probably write, but I've got a few that i already wrote before, so if u want more voltron it's already there <3 enjoy lance getting the shit beat out of him for the first few chapters lmao
> 
> want to get updated when i post the next chapter? follow me on tumblr (bmgh-writing) or tiktok (bmgh.writing) there's also links there on ways to support me that ao3 doesn't let me post-- help me make rent bbs XD 
> 
> as always,  
> Scream at me in the comments, nothing brings me more joy!!! :DDDDD


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